Foregone Conclusions
by lose
Summary: After getting hit by a car while biking on a busy street, Hikigaya Hachiman loses all memory of the past few days of his life. The problem is: when he comes to, he finds a mysterious note in his pocket with a cryptic message on it. With the help of an unlikely partner, he decides to jump down the rabbit hole and figure out what it all means. Mystery/humor/romance. Completed!
1. Tumult

**Foregone Conclusions**

**Chapter 1: Tumult**

_Yelling. The crash and clank of steel as it bends and twists._

"_S…!"_

_Hushed whispers on every side. _

"_-ou oka…?"_

_Camera shutters click._

"…_can ou he me kid?"_

_A car horn sounds off frantically._

"KID! I said, are you alright?"

I suddenly cough roughly and blink tears from my eyes. I didn't know how those got there or why. My mouth tastes bitter. Like metal.

I stare up at the man who asked me that question. His face looks grim and his eyes look like they're tight with concern.

I try to push myself up but I feel a sharp pain in my ribs as I do.

"Eugh…" I groan out unceremoniously.

"Shit, maybe someone should call for an ambulance," the man speaks over his shoulder, as if addressing someone behind him.

I look up and for the first time, take the opportunity to notice my surroundings. I'm laying (well, sitting now) on a sidewalk and there's a large group of people crowding around me in a semi-circle.

They're looking at me like I'm an animal in a zoo exhibit. It makes me incredibly uncomfortable.

They're all whispering to each other. Some have their phones out and are trying to discretely take pictures. Others aren't so courteous and try to jam their phones as close as possible to my face to get a good shot.

Awkwardly, I look down and move my fingers to my hair in an attempt to scratch my head in what was a nervous gesture, but I find my fingers are unable to make contact with my scalp.

Instead, they encounter something hard. My fingers trace the outlines of that hard material and I suddenly realize that I'm wearing a helmet.

"…Do you know what day it is?" the man from before asks me.

I try to think long and hard but I can't place the date. However, I do know the month.

"…Um, April?" I ask tentatively.

"Geez," the man shakes his head. "That car really did a number on you, didn't it?"

Car huh… I don't remember anything about a car.

"Er, what happened exactly?" I ask as I scratch at my cheek. I feel something wet and sticky there. I notice that the crowd around me starts to thin as they realize I've fully regained consciousness.

The man breathes out. "Well, I didn't see the whole thing, but you were biking across the crosswalk, remember?" He pauses as if to gauge my reaction and my memory. I just regard him with my two dead fish eyes.

"Right. Well, as you were biking through the intersection, this black car suddenly comes out of nowhere and just comes ramming through and it clips you right on the back of your bike," he continues. "Lucky for you, it only smashed the bike itself, but it sent you flying straight to the sidewalk. I think you bashed your head pretty good. Thank God for that helmet you're wearing or your skull would be in more than one piece right now."

I move my fingers to rub at my helmet again, and this time I notice there's a huge dent near the right side. I gulp. He was right. I panic for a second.

"Wait, where's my bike?" I ask suddenly.

The man tugs a finger to his left. I look over and my heart sinks.

The bike that had served me so well starting from my middle school years was bent roughly and unnaturally out of shape. The back of the bike was twisted and the rear tire was all but obliterated. It seemed beyond salvage.

Bike-chan…

I whimper.

"I'm gonna call an ambulance," the man says. "Because it seems like I'm the only one here that gives a damn about a possibly dying kid." He adds that last part in with an annoyed mutter.

"Ah, I think I'm alright actually," I say. It's not a lie. My head is ringing slightly but I don't feel like I need something as dramatic as an ambulance. That just seems like it would be a waste of everyone's time. I feel mostly fine...

"Kid, you can't even remember what day it is," he deadpans.

"Umm…" I begin aimlessly. A stray thought suddenly pops into my head. I remember my parents staying home yesterday and lazing around the house. My dad kept going '_Hachiman, bring me some pudding from the fridge… Grab me a popsicle from the freezer would ya? Come on, today's my first day off in ages. Please help out your old man already…'_

Classic, pathetic dad. It wasn't his fault, however. The life of a wage-slave really did drain your spirit completely. Crap, I really don't want to end up like him.

Oh yeah. So since my parents were staying home yesterday, that meant it was a holiday. Uhh, right! Yesterday was Showa Day. That had to mean that today was April 30th.

"It's April 30th." Proud of my deduction, I speak. "See? I'm doing fine. Thanks for your concern, sir." I attempt to stand to my feet. My ribs and legs protest slightly as I do, but I manage.

The guy just shakes his head and gives a quiet snort. "Like I said, that car did a number on you."

I regard him wearily. "Huh?" I mutter.

"It's not April 30th," he says with some gravity. I want to roll my eyes at him but he looks serious. "It's May 2nd."

My heart skips a beat. That can't be. I specifically remember my parents staying home yesterday.

…That _was_ yesterday wasn't it?

"O-Oh," I say, looking down at my slightly bloody hands.

The man takes a quick, almost imperceptible glance at his watch. "Look, I can't force you to go to the hospital if you don't want to," he begins. "But you banged your head pretty hard, so there's definitely a chance you might have a concussion." He looks at me seriously. "So do us both a favor and don't fall asleep any time soon alright?"

I can't find any words to say so I just nod.

"I have to go," he starts as he begins to slowly move away from me. "Take care of yourself kid. Sorry that happened to you. I wish someone would've written down that bastard's plate before he bolted off."

"Y-Yeah. Me too," I say. "Thanks."

The man nods and then begins walking down the street, his hands buried in his jacket pockets.

I somehow find myself not believing him. Not because he seemed untrustworthy or anything, but because if he _were_ telling the truth, then the fact of the matter was that there was something seriously wrong with me.

There were only a few things in my life that I was proud of myself for, but one of those was my memory. I'd always had a sharp memory. Usually I would use it for stupid stuff like remembering ninja hand signs, or baseball stats, or some other stupid stuff, but regardless, I knew that my memory was solid. I specifically remembered that yesterday was a holiday. As such, given that assumption, there was no way it could have been May 2nd today.

I suddenly realize it's pointless to speculate. After all, I had a device in my pocket that could answer all of my questions in a matter of seconds. In fact, telling me the date was the _least _that it was capable of.

I stick my hand into my pocket and fumble around until I feel a rectangular-shaped object. I grab it and fish it out.

Upon seeing the device, tears come rushing back to my eyes.

Like my poor bike, my phone was completely bent and broken. I realize that I must have landed on it.

The screen was shattered to pieces and judging by my failed attempts to turn it on, it seemed that the damage wasn't only superficial. No matter which way you sliced it, the result was the same. My phone was completely toast.

_My parents will probably end up killing me when I tell them about the sad fate of my poor little phone._ _Life really isn't fair at all…_

Sighing, I attempt to jam it back into my pants pocket, but as I do, the tips of my fingers suddenly feel a strange texture. I push them further in, and they come into contact with something slightly rough.

Fishing around, I manage to pull out the culprit. In my hands is a small, folded piece of paper. I pause.

_What the heck… Is this a gum wrapper or something?_

I gaze cautiously at the paper. At the very least, it was bigger than a gum wrapper, but not by much. I eventually shrug and decide to unfold it.

Inside, an assortment of words and numbers are haphazardly scribbled.

_8700 Soryu Way. 13:00. 12._

I eye the mysterious piece of paper with great uncertainty. Umm, what the heck? Am I supposed to understand what this means?

I look around nervously, suddenly feeling like I'm some sort of spy that just got tangled up in a web of lies and deceit. Was someone trying to tell me something here? Did I get lost en route to a rendezvous with an arms dealer? Should I duck before a sniper takes me out?!

I shake my head to clear myself of these useless thoughts. I look at the paper again.

8700 Soryu Way. I didn't know that exact address per se, but it was clear that the first part of the message _was_ in fact an address, and I _did _know where Soryu Way was. In fact, it was actually only around 11 blocks away from the street I was currently on.

_Was this where I was heading before I..? _

I moved on to the next part of the message. If the first number were truly an address, then the purpose of the second set of numbers suddenly became very obvious.

13:00. Or in other words, 1:00 PM. I didn't know why I had this note in my pocket to begin with, but if I were reading things correctly, it appeared that for whatever reason, I was supposed to arrive at that location at 1 PM. Although discovering that much did answer some questions, it raised about a hundred more.

I looked over to the last number again. 12.

With no other information to go off of, the number itself meant absolutely nothing to me. Twelve what? The Twelve Disciples? Twelve Days of Christmas?

I was at a loss as far as the last part was concerned, but at least, I had managed to crack the first two parts of the strange code. _Or at least, I think I have._

Suddenly, I hear a loud sound reverberate through the nearby area.

_Ring. _

The sound resonates heavily and sends a chilling vibration through my chest. I quickly realized that it was the bell tower located in this part of Chiba that was the source of that noise. It sounded every time the hour changed.

I only heard one solitary ring. Which meant that the hour had just changed to 1 o'clock. 1:00 PM.

I stare at the note again.

Squeezing my eyes, I try to think back to the events that had transpired before I came to on the sidewalk with a mangled bike and a broken phone. However, despite all of my efforts and concentration, I was left with nothing. I couldn't remember a single thing that had happened.

My very last memory was of my parents lazily wrapped around each other on the couch watching reruns of old gameshows…

If the man from earlier was to be believed, then today wasn't actually April 30th. It was May 2nd. If this were true, then that meant that I had lost all memory of the last two days of my life.

It was an incredibly alarming thought.

But somehow, even though I couldn't explain it, I knew in my gut that the note I had pulled from my pocket was important. I just couldn't remember how exactly.

I suddenly felt a strong determination to find out.

Picking up my mangled bike, I begin to roll it slowly towards Soryu Way.

It was time to put together some pieces.

* * *

**AN: **Looks like we've got a bit of a mystery on our hands eh? I've been working on my other stories, but I've also recently had the strong urge to exorcise some ideas from my head, and experiment with different writing styles. Which means you all get to be my guinea pigs. Lucky you! I already have a few more chapters written out so it shouldn't be long before another update. Thanks for reading.


	2. Parchment

**Chapter 2: Parchment**

As I lug the pretty much useless piece of metal and rubber through the streets, I wince. My ribs still feel raw. They don't hurt enough for me to think that they're broken, but it's not like they feel completely fine either.

At this point, I consider just abandoning my bike somewhere and hoping nobody notices. It's not like I could somehow magically fix it or anything even if I did eventually drag it all the way home. It was nothing more than a piece of scrap metal now, and it was slowing me down considerably.

I sigh and decide against it. I was almost there anyway.

I passed by Kururugi Road a few blocks back, which means that I'm getting closer and closer to my destination.

8700 Soryu Way.

That was the address that was written on the strange piece of paper that I had found in my pocket.

At least I knew where I was going. That fact gave me some solace.

My only concern at this rate is that I might end up being late and missing out on whatever it is that's waiting for me at that location.

After all, the bell tower that signified the changing of hours to 1 PM had gone off probably around fifteen minutes ago at this point.

Honestly, chances were that whatever was _supposed _to be happening at 8700 Soryu Way at 1 PM was probably over by now.

I feel a slight sting of loss, but I quickly decide that it's pointless to feel that way. After all, who's to say that this whole thing wasn't some sort of weird prank or something? I didn't even know why I was supposed to be in that location in the first place. Therefore, even if I did miss out on it, it's not like anything of importance to me would be lost…

I pick up my pace regardless.

After a few more minutes of brisk walking, I finally make it to Soryu Way. As I saunter along the street, I squint and look for the correct address.

When I finally locate those numbers, my eyebrows raise and I can't help but stare in slight confusion.

8700 Soryu Way was… a restaurant.

A really, really fancy looking restaurant.

I pull the note out from my pocket again and stare at the numbers just to make sure I had read them correctly. I had.

Written in cursive script across the banner that hung above the store, were the words: _Corte Bella._

I gaze at the doors unsurely.

Was this really the place I was supposed to enter at 1 PM? This place looked to be way beyond my _parents' _paygrade, let alone my own.

I swallow but eventually shrug. Eh, screw it. I didn't drag my sorry butt all the way over here just to go home now. I had already invested a lot of time and effort to get here (I had apparently been hit by a damn car on the way for heaven's sake). As it stood, there was no other path for me but the one that led to the end.

I tie up my ruined bike to a post and take off my helmet. I notice a slight pain in my head as I do.

Ignoring the pulsing in my scalp, I walk through the large doors of the restaurant, and immediately notice that it's dimly lit and rather atmospheric. It seems to be quite large, with many different sections cordoned off from one another to provide an increased sense of privacy. As expected during the lunch hour, it's rather full. Almost at capacity it looks like.

"Can I help you sir?"

A voice addresses me and I'm suddenly broken from my thoughts.

The man who asked that question looks at me with slightly disdainful eyes and does a once over of my body.

I feel rather embarrassed suddenly. In that moment, I notice that the man is dressed in formal clothing and his name tag says "Ryoji". I deduce that he must be the host of this restaurant.

I find myself at a loss for words.

"Er," I stammer out. "…Is this 8700 Soryu Way?" I ask quietly, not being able to think of anything else to say.

The man's facial expression doesn't change at all. "Correct, sir. Do you have a reservation?" He asks the question skeptically, as if he already knows the answer.

It's not like he's wrong. I don't have a reservation. In fact, I don't even know what the heck I'm supposed to be doing here in the first place.

However, I suddenly remember something.

"Er, give me one second please," I say. The host doesn't say anything.

I fish into my pocket and pull out the paper.

_8700 Soryu Way. 13:00. 12. _

"…Could you check the reservations for 1 PM please?" I ask unsurely.

I know it's a long shot, but perhaps 1 PM actually refers to a reservation time for the restaurant? In any case, it was all I had to go on.

At first, the man merely looks at me, but after a moment he nods stiffly and peers down at the tablet lying on his podium.

"And what is your name sir?"

"Uh, Hikigaya. Hachiman," I answer.

He continues to peer at the screen in front of him. In the dim room, his face looks odd under the illumination of his tablet and for some reason, it makes me a bit nervous. Eventually, he looks up and I almost freeze as he regards me with slightly cold eyes and pursed lips.

I look down at my feet. Ah, I guess that's that then.

Obviously I wouldn't have a reservation here. Even though I couldn't remember the details of the past two days, I knew myself and I knew that I would never make a reservation for a joint like this. It was way too expensive and this really wasn't my type of scene.

I still didn't know what that note meant, but clearly, it had to be some sort of prank. I wasn't sure who pulled it, but whoever it was, they sure got me good…

"Very good, Hikigaya-san. You'll be at table 12," the host suddenly speaks. I nearly jump out of my skin as he does. He regards me blankly before finishing. "That'll be at the back of the restaurant, behind the flower arrangement."

"Oh, r-right," I blink nervously.

12.

He said I was going to be seated at table 12. That must have been what the note was referring to.

_8700 Soryu Way. 13:00. 12. _

I was supposed to be meeting someone here at 1 PM at table 12. All the pieces started to slowly fit together in my mind. It suddenly all started to make sense!

Well actually, it didn't at all. As for who I was meeting and why, I still had absolutely no clue.

"Your associate is already waiting at the table. Has been, for a while now, I might add," he says with some pomp. "Please attempt to be a bit more punctual next time. In the future, I can't guarantee that we can hold your reservations for very long if not all of the members of the party arrive on time."

The man glares at me coldly, and I shrink under his gaze. "Sorry… I got into a little accident on the way here," I say nervously. It was a bit more information than he needed, but I felt the need to defend myself for whatever reason.

"I see. That explains…" the man begins, but cuts himself short. As he speaks, he suddenly gestures to my body, before finally raising his hand to his mouth and coughing once. "Might I suggest you make your way into the bathroom and freshen up before you take your seat? I think it would be a benefit to all parties if you did."

I suddenly take a chance to look at myself. I look down and notice that my clothes are battered and slightly torn in some areas. There's a layer of dust and dirt covering my pants and… suit jacket?

I raise an eyebrow as I fumble around with the piece of expensive looking outerwear that is adorning my body. Somehow I hadn't noticed that I was wearing it at all…

"I think the bathroom will provide you with a better environment for… preening," the host says flatly. "It's that way."

I roll my eyes at that, but I take the hint. "Got it," I say as I make my way towards the direction he specified.

I push the door open to the men's room. Unlike the restaurant itself, the bathroom is well lit. It's also immaculately decorated. I waddle over to the sink and stare at my reflection in the mirror.

_Uwah. _

I almost jump back from what I see in front of me.

No wonder the host looked at me with such disdain. I looked like a hobo or maybe some sort of ravenous zombie.

My clothes were covered by a veneer of dirt, and like I had seen before, there were a number of slight tears in my fancy blazer.

That wasn't the worst of it, either. A thick line of dried blood was running down the side of my cheek and my face looked almost black, with how much grime it was covered in.

I grimace.

I immediately put my hands under the water and begin to wash my face free of the dirt that had accumulated there. However, when my hand reaches near the top of my forehead, I grunt out in pain.

There was a wound on my scalp that was the origin of the dried blood on my cheek and forehead. That must have been the point of collision when I got knocked off my bicycle and onto the sidewalk.

It's painful, but I manage to clean the wound with water, and to rub the dried blood from my cheek. I brush the dirt from my pants and jacket with a few sweeps of my hand.

After all is said and done, I actually look somewhat presentable, if not a bit rough.

I sigh out as I look at my reflection.

At least I've figured out what the note meant. I've figured out the where and when of the whole situation, but I still don't know the _why._

Was I really about to go meet an arms dealer or something right now?

If I were, this place seems about as good as any to do something like that. If a fancy yet somehow shady looking place like this was owned by the mob, I wouldn't be surprised in the least.

I shake my head. I'm being stupid. I didn't know why I was here, but it definitely wasn't for something that crazy. After all, my life was ordinary, if not a little bit boring. Memory loss or not, there was no way I was caught up in something like that. That type of thing only happened in anime and old detective movies.

I exit the bathroom and begin making my way toward the back of the restaurant.

The restaurant itself really is large. It takes me a few moments of walking until I finally locate the large flower arrangement that the host had spoken of. According to him, table twelve is somewhere behind it.

As I finally pass it, I look around for any indication of the table.

Eventually, my eyes settle on a little white placard with the number twelve written on it in fancy, cursive script.

_There you are…_

Although, what I see next to that placard is not something I was expecting at all.

A tall girl with elegant silver hair, wearing a sleek, midnight blue dress is seated at the table.

However, her eyes aren't focused on a menu, or a meal, or anything of that sort at all.

Instead, her sharp teal irises bore straight into me, like two piercing knives. Whoever she is, she looks pissed.

Wait a second…

_That expression looks familiar somehow…_

I squint. Recognition slowly dawns on my face as my eyes adjust to the darkness and I can see her features more clearly.

I don't know why but I feel a chill run through my body.

_Oh… It's her… _

* * *

**AN: **No, I'm not colorblind. I think her hair looks silver-ish. Silver-ish blue. But for simplicity's sake, I'm just gonna call it silver. For this story, I'm referencing her appearance from the first season, so her eyes are a dark teal color. If you still can't figure out who I'm talking about at this point, then I guess you're just going to have to wait until next time to see. Heh.


	3. Rendezvous

**Chapter 3: Rendezvous **

I stand completely still as I'm confronted with that glowering visage of hers.

I gulp nervously. I can't find it in myself to move any closer to her when she's giving me that look. A look that makes it seem like she wants to rip out my intestines and wrap them around her neck like a scarf.

Seriously though. What the heck is she doing here? As far as I know, she definitely isn't some mob boss or arms dealer…

"_Hey_."

That word cuts through the fog of my thoughts and causes me to seize up. It's spoken with barely concealed irritation.

_Uh oh. _

_Uhh, maybe she's not talking to me… Maybe if I ignore her and stand completely still, she'll realize her mistake and get back to doing whatever it was she was doing… at table 12._

"Hikigaya."

Another cutting word. I wince.

I turn towards her and I finally convince my feet that feel like piles of molasses, to move.

"Yo, K—" I stop myself short.

Shit. Her name.

What was her name again? I knew for a fact that it started with a K... Kawa-something… That was the closest thing I could think of in that moment. I sweat.

As if she weren't angry enough already.

"—You," I finish with a slight cough into my hand.

She glares at me before roughly saying her next words. "You sure took your time getting here, huh? I was going to leave pretty soon..."

I grimace. So it wasn't all just an unfortunate coincidence then. The reason that this girl was waiting at table 12, was because she was waiting for me.

I still don't know why, however.

I open my mouth to speak, but I'm interrupted with a small sigh.

"Never mind. You should just sit down already. People are looking," Kawa-something says.

I pause at first but quickly oblige and plop down in the seat across from her.

I notice that table 12 is a two-person table located in a rather secluded section of the restaurant. However, despite that, there _are _still other patrons surrounding us. It's to be expected since it seems to be such a busy restaurant, after all.

I see in my peripheral vision that the glares that were fixed upon us a few moments earlier, finally turn away.

"Well, don't just sit there," the girl across from me deadpans. "Take a look at the menu. I've been waiting for a while and I'm really hungry. I want to eat already."

I can't argue with that logic. The explanations would have to wait for now. Now that I don't feel like I'm about to be murdered, I notice that I'm actually pretty hungry myself.

I open the menu in front of me and immediately begin perusing the options.

I feel my heart break.

It's just as I had thought. The prices here are absolutely ridiculous. Most meals are in the four thousand yen range, and that isn't even including any of the house specialties or the fancier stuff. The appetizers are in the two thousand yen range and I'm willing to bet my bottom dollar that the plates are tiny and not filling at all.

Even the alcohol menu looks to be exorbitantly priced. Not that I was planning on drinking any or anything, but I notice that a tiny cup of sake alone costs over a thousand yen.

Something clicks in my mind. That sounds familiar for some reason.

_Sake. _

Kawa… sake? Kawasake! No… that's close, but it's still off somehow. It's on the tip of my tongue now… Kawa… Kawa…

"Kawasaki!" I suddenly exclaim. That's it! I can't help but let a smug smile make its way across my face. It felt unbelievably satisfying to finally remember something after thinking about it for so long.

"W-What is it?" the girl across from me (Kawasaki) suddenly stutters out.

I look at her oddly. "Huh?"

She narrows her eyes and gives me another glare of death.

"U-Uh, I'm just ready to order. That's all," I say nervously, my eyes turning away to avoid those annoyed cerulean orbs of hers.

"Oh," she begins, all anger suddenly seeming to drain from her face. "Me too."

This girl frightens me. Usually she's pretty normal and quiet, but sometimes her delinquent side leaks out out of nowhere and it always manages to seriously scare the bajeezus out of me.

Eventually the waiter comes over and we both give him our orders. I order a flank steak, medium rare, and she orders chicken alfredo pasta. I notice that we've both ordered two of the cheapest entrees on the menu.

I look at her face as she orders, and I can tell she's a bit dismayed about the price too. After all, it's not like we're Yukinoshita or anything. A place like this is beyond what we're comfortable with.

Which begs the question: what are we both doing here in the first place?

The waiter nods and strolls away after jotting down the orders in his notepad.

Without the distraction that picking out a meal and ordering provides, we're suddenly left to our own awkward devices. And as expected of a social situation between two loners, boy is it awkward.

I cough into my palm.

Surprisingly, Kawasaki is the one to eventually break that silence. "…So why were you so late?" she asks quietly. As she says this, she looks down at the table. "I… thought you weren't going to show." Although I can't see her full expression, I notice she looks almost… forlorn.

For some reason, it makes me turn my eyes away.

"O-Oh. Sorry about that…" I begin to mutter honestly. "I just got into a little accident on the way here and had to walk for longer than I was expecting. I didn't mean to keep you waiting."

It was strange. It wasn't like the situation was really my fault, given that I hadn't even known who I was supposed to be meeting here in the first place, but for whatever reason, her somber expression tugged at my heart strings, and I couldn't help but try to ease her worries. At least a little bit.

She cautiously looks up at my face, studying something there. Eventually she breathes out in understanding. "Oh. That would explain why your jacket's so beat up looking and why your face is so dirty."

_Crap. I thought I had completely washed the grime away, but I guess I didn't do as good of a job as I had initially believed._

"…Are you okay?" she asks after a beat. Unexpectedly, her voice is tinted with a tone of genuine concern. A sharp contrast to her biting one from earlier.

"Yeah. I'm fine," I begin. "Just a few scrapes and bruises, so I'll live." I decide to leave out the finer details, including the whole memory loss thing. It's not like I don't trust her per se, but I'm not sure if it would be a good idea to just go around telling everyone about that.

She nods once. "Aside from those little tears, your jacket looks… pretty nice. You actually dressed up, huh…" She says this in what sounds like an almost incredulous tone. It's hard to tell under the dim lighting, but her cheeks look a little bit pink.

Gah! Don't underestimate me! It's not that strange that I dressed up! I like to look nice too sometimes ok?

To be fair, I don't actually remember choosing my current outfit, but I do have to agree: it does make me look a lot more fashionable than I was used to. And hey, I wasn't going to turn down a compliment. It's not like I get many of those in the first place, so turning one down is probably like bad luck or something.

"Right… Thanks," I give my best attempt at a small smile but I'm sure it comes out rotten.

I take the opportunity to study her clothing in finer detail. She's wearing a simple midnight blue dress that cuts off mid-thigh and shows off her arms and the rest of her… figure, rather well.

I avert my eyes lest I get smacked over the head for indecency.

"You look good too. I don't think I've ever seen you in a dress before," I speak honestly.

For some reason, upon hearing those words, her face turns completely red and despite the dim lighting, it's easy to see.

"W-What! The only reason I'm wearing it is because I looked up the address when you sent it to me and I saw that this place had a dress code! I wouldn't have worn it otherwise!" she exclaims rather quickly and somewhat loudly. Her cheeks are stained with a vivid shade of pink and she turns her eyes away in embarrassment. "…and besides, aren't you supposed to dress up nicely for a first date… or something…" she adds with a mutter.

I raise my eyebrow. I was not expecting that almost cliched-level-of-tsundere response from her. Geez, and I thought _I _was bad at taking a compliment.

Wait.

Huh?

"…First date?" I ask, my eyes wide with some shock as I finally register her words.

_Is…Is that what this whole thing is?_

She looks at me curiously. "Very funny…" she breathes out in annoyance.

"I don't really know what you're talking about…" I say in a state of confusion.

I had come in here expecting to have a sack thrown over my head and then be dragged into a van, but oddly enough, this seemed far more unexpected somehow.

The pieces slowly begin to fit together in my head. So that's what this is.

That must have been the reason I was dressed so well today. I must have purposely tried to wear something nice for the occasion. It also explained why I had a reservation in such a fancy restaurant to begin with. This place definitely didn't make a good spot for a discussion or a study group or for whatever I'd initially thought this impromptu meeting between me and Kawasaki was for.

It all began to make sense… All except for one crucial thing.

The fact of the matter was: I just couldn't see myself asking Kawasaki out in the first place. It didn't seem like something I would do in the slightest.

And that wasn't a knock against Kawasaki at all. It was just that I couldn't see myself asking out _anyone _in the first place. Like ever. So how did I end up in this situation?

_What the hell happened in those last two days..?_

"What are you saying…" Kawasaki says quietly as she glares at me.

However, upon noticing my genuinely confused expression, her face slowly begins to fall and she begins to mumble.

"…but in your messages, it seemed like you were… were asking me out… I was pretty sure…" As she speaks, her cheeks turn red again, but this time it doesn't seem like it's from anger or embarrassment. It looks almost like she's… in pain. "…Did I really misunderstand?" she whispers.

She grabs her bare arms and stares at some nondescript spot on the table.

I wince as I look at the trembling girl before me.

Crap... Did I really do this to her?

It's not hard at all to see why she'd be hurt. If I thought I were going on a date with someone and then they turned up and looked at me like I was an idiot for even suggesting it in the first place, I know I would be absolutely crushed. I wouldn't be able to hold it together nearly as well as Kawasaki was doing right now. I'd be a blubbering mess, crying my eyes out on the floor in the fetal position. That was the truth.

Regardless, even though my confusion had been real and even though I knew that she was a lot tougher than I was, I still couldn't stand to see her shake like that.

So I decide to tell her the truth. As much as I know of it anyway.

"That accident I had earlier…" I begin to speak suddenly, and I think it catches her slightly off guard. She looks at me. "It was actually a little worse than I let on," I sigh. "A car came out of nowhere and knocked me from my bike. I flew off and ended up banging my head pretty hard against the cement. Believe it or not, I actually can't remember anything that happened in the last two days." I try to force another smile but it comes out as a half-grimace. I'm sure it looks absolutely repulsive.

She eyes me curiously before scoffing quietly. "You don't need to make up such an unbelievable excuse."

I keep my expression neutral and stare into her teal eyes.

She continues to gaze at me for a while before her expression softens just a tad. "You serious?"

"Yeah…" I mutter.

She looks slightly stunned. "When did this happen?" she asks.

"Like thirty minutes ago…" I answer truthfully.

Her eyes almost bulge out of her head. "What the hell!" She reaches across the table and punches me on my shoulder. Hard. I wince from the pain.

"What the heck was that for? I'm injured enough already," I hiss out. God, she really knew how to punch. That was going to leave a bruise for sure.

"Why the hell didn't you go straight to the hospital? You got hit by a car for pete's sake!"

I shrug halfheartedly. "Aside from losing my memory, I didn't actually get hurt that badly. Like I said before, just a few bruises and scrapes. Oh yeah, and my head was bleeding a bit but I cleaned it up."

She looks at me, her eyes looking halfway between concerned and disgusted. She sighs through her nostrils. "You're such an idiot…"

"Um, thanks?" I ask rhetorically with a frown.

"That wasn't a compliment," she grumbles. She pauses for a while before saying, "…you really can't remember anything that happened in the last two days?"

I shake my head. "Nope. Not a thing. My memory only goes as far back as waking up on the sidewalk with a broken bike. And before that, Showa Day."

"…Isn't that like really bad?"

"Probably," I answer.

She seems to nod at this, and a silence settles over us. It isn't an uncomfortable one.

I'm the one who eventually breaks that silence. "So…" I begin unsurely. "I really asked you out huh?" I mutter that last part.

Now that the shock of discovering the true purpose for my being here was finally starting to wear off, I was left with a startling realization.

For some reason, I still had a hard time believing that I actually _did_ ask her out in the first place, but all signs were pointing to the fact that, despite my disbelief, it did indeed happen. Not only that, but apparently, for whatever unfathomable reason, she had agreed to it…

It was an odd thought.

"Y-Yeah…" she acknowledges quietly. "It was over text of course, which I thought was a little…strange, but eventually I was like… _'um… why not'_, you know, and I just… decided to show up." She turns her eyes away as she recounts these events, her cheeks once again warming.

At this rate, she should just put on some pink blush and get it over with.

I nod, but I think she sees the uncertainty on my face, because she says, "Wow. You really don't remember."

"Sorry," I apologize.

She shakes her head. "No. It's not your fault." As her hair moves from side to side, I suddenly notice the scent of lavender shampoo drifting into my nostrils. "I'm sorry about getting mad…"

"Don't worry about it," I answer with a wave of my hand.

We look at anywhere but each other, both unsure of what to do, now that the air is clear and those awkward revelations have been made.

Thankfully, in that moment, the waiter comes around and sets down two plates in front of us. The smell immediately catches my attention and my mouth waters. The meals look delicious, as they should, considering how expensive they are.

"Can I get you anything else? Would you two like refills on your waters?" the waiter asks with a smile.

"Sure," we both answer at the same time.

The waiter pours the water and then retreats back to the kitchen, leaving us to enjoy our food.

I dig in eagerly and sigh contentedly once I taste the delicious cut of meat. It tastes heavenly and I can't stop myself from eating to my heart's content as I slice away and greedily pull at pieces of the steak. It's only when I finish about half of it that I pause for a break.

I look up and notice that Kawasaki has also finished roughly half of her own meal. Her face looks contented as she shovels the pasta into her mouth. I guess she really was hungry.

"What?" she asks, her teal eyes suddenly locking with mine and catching me off guard. Her cheeks are slightly puffy from being filled with pasta.

"Nothing," I chuckle.

She huffs but pretty much ignores me and continues to eat, expertly curling up the noodles with her fork. Damn, it was actually kind of impressive how good she was with a fork. Naturally, I was good because I always ate at Saize so I was used to using the Western utensil, but I wasn't sure how she had become so proficient at it.

I don't decide to voice my curiosity on the subject, however. Instead, I decide to ask her another question altogether.

"Hey…" I start.

"…Yeah?" she says, after she swallows a bite.

My cheeks suddenly feel a bit hot, but it's only because I just took a bite of steaming hot beef… T-That's the only reason. Against my better judgment, I continue. "…so what did I say… uh, you know… when I asked you…" I say, looking into my plate.

I couldn't lie. I was incredibly curious to learn about the way I had supposedly asked her out. I mean, if I were asked to repeat that task in this very moment, I would literally have no earthly clue what to say or do, so I find myself highly surprised that my past self was able to do something so bold.

She coughs upon hearing those words. Although I was a bit vague with my language, it seems like she understood my meaning clearly.

She looks caught off guard, as if she weren't expecting me to ask a question like that.

"W-Well," she stammers out. "You were actually really direct… like almost forcefully so…" She pauses to tug at the pasta with her fork in what seems like an absentminded gesture. "…You said that you'd had… um… feelings for me for a while, and that you couldn't hold it in anymore… And then you basically told me to meet you here at 1 PM today."

I nod slowly as I listen to her words, but this time I can't help but feel _my _cheeks heat up completely. I turn my gaze to the table and hope she doesn't notice.

_What the heck…_ Did I seriously say all that? That sounded cheesy as hell!

It was so embarrassing, I wanted to die on the spot. But I guess it did somehow end up working since she'd said yes, so I guess it was effective on some level…

However, what she had mentioned in the beginning part of her explanation gave me some pause.

According to her, I had told her that I'd had feelings for her for a while?

Once again, it wasn't that I didn't like Kawasaki or anything, but the reality was that I didn't actually know her all that well. Sure, I'd helped her before with some of her problems and we would talk to each other on some rare occasions, but I couldn't say that I really held any particularly strong romantic feelings towards her in the past…

I also highly doubted that I could develop feelings for her so quickly in those two days where my memory had vanished from my mind. In fact, from the way she made it sound, it seemed as if we had never actually met face to face during those days. It sounded like only text messages had been exchanged.

Was past me so desperate for a date that I made that little tidbit up just to score some pity points? That certainly didn't seem like something I would do.

Somehow, I felt like it didn't quite add up.

"Er, I know it's a bit rude of me to ask," I begin uncertainly. "…but would you mind if I took a look at your phone?"

Her eyes grow wide at this and she looks taken aback. "H-Huh? Why do you need it? That kind of thing is sort of private you know…"

"R-Right. Sorry," I say apologetically. "I just… kind of want to see those messages for myself."

She raises an eyebrow. "Why don't you just look at them on your own phone?"

"I would," I start. I reach my hand into my pocket and pull out my phone for her to see. "but it's kind of trashed right now."

She winces a bit out of pity as her eyes fall upon the completely demolished piece of technology. "Wow. Did that happen because of the accident?"

I nod solemnly. "Yep. I must have landed right on it as I fell. Well, on that and my head."

My lame excuse for a joke falls on deaf ears as she pauses to consider her options. She looks incredibly unsure at first, but eventually she sighs and rubs at her arm. "Okay, fine," she breathes. "But don't look at anything other than the messages alright?"

She gives me a glare as she says this and I nod enthusiastically. "Right."

"…Do you promise?" she asks, her eyes glimmering with something resembling vulnerability.

I raise my right hand. "Promise."

She breathes a stray strand of hair out of her face before pulling her phone out of her purse. She unlocks it and presses a few buttons on it, before slowly handing it over to me. "Okay, here."

I assume that she had just pulled up the text conversation between us.

My eyes immediately begin to scan the contents of that conversation as soon as the phone reaches my fingers.

The conversation appears to have gone like this:

_Friday, April 30__th__._

_(4:25 PM) Hello my dearest Saki-san_. _This is Hikigaya Hachiman from your class. Even if it hasn't seemed like it, I want you to know that I've been holding feelings for you for a long time now, and I just can't keep it in any longer. It's overwhelming me. Every time I see you, my heart flutters and my pulse skyrockets. Your beauty captivates me and makes me speechless whenever I so much as lay eyes upon your angelic face. I'm tired of waiting. I want to take it to the next level._

_(4:28 PM) Please, I would love it if you would join me for lunch at a restaurant this Sunday. I've already made reservations for us and secured us a table (table 12!). If you go, my heart would finally feel full. I would be eternally grateful if you would bless me with your presence. Even if it was only for one meeting._

_(4:29 PM) Here are the details for where and when you should meet me:_

_(4:29 PM) 8700 Soryu way. 13:00. 12._

_(4:34 PM) Oh yeah and I forgot to mention but when you see me, please don't mention these texts. I get embarrassed very easily so it'd be better if you just kept them to yourself heh. Thanks!_

I blink as I finally finish reading the words on the screen in front of me. I think I'm in shock. I find myself unable to formulate words.

"…Yeah, so it was a lot to take in… especially coming from you…" Kawasaki begins awkwardly. "But… I don't know, it seemed like you were being… really… honest? So I couldn't just not show up…" she says quietly. "That would be pretty rude…" Her cheeks appear to be tinged slightly pink again. I notice that she's rambling a bit. "And I know in your message that you said not to mention these texts, but obviously the situation has changed and everything… with you losing your memory, and—"

My shell-shocked eyes eventually drift up to meet hers, and my next words cut her train of thought short.

"That isn't my number. I wasn't the one who sent this."

* * *

**AN: **The plot thickens. Dun dun dun. If you have any theories or ideas regarding the mystery or anything else as the story progresses, I'd love it if you would share it with me in the reviews! It's not a particularly hard mystery to solve, but there'll be little clues in every chapter, so pay attention I guess. As always, thanks for reading.


	4. Determination

**Chapter 4: Determination**

"W-What do you mean it isn't your number?"

Kawasaki asks this question, her face scrunching up from confusion as she hears the shocking news.

"It's not like I have that many numbers memorized, but I do know my own, and that's definitely not it," I say as my eyes meet hers. "Also, I could kind of tell from the very first sentence that that's not my way of typing. Because of that, I quickly checked the number of the sender and… yeah. I've never seen that number before in my life."

The truth was that the second after I had read the first line where "I" had addressed her as 'Saki-san', I immediately knew that something was up. I knew this because even now, I could barely remember Kawasaki's last name. There was no chance in hell that I knew her first. And even less of one that I would ever use it so flippantly.

This was quite an unexpected development. I fell back in my seat as I began to think about it.

So if it wasn't me who wrote that message to her, who could possibly have pretended to be me? Better question: why the heck would anyone choose _me _of all people to impersonate...?

Just as I was beginning to get some answers, a whole new batch of questions pops up right in my face.

Kawasaki takes a moment to consider what all of this means. "You're saying somebody else sent that message then…" she says quietly.

I nod stiffly.

Oh man. If I had thought that this whole meeting had gone strangely for me, I could only imagine how unexpected and draining it was for Kawasaki. It was probably like a whole damn rollercoaster ride of emotions for her.

I really hoped in that moment that the unexpected news wouldn't evoke such a melancholy reaction out of her again. I didn't think my heart could handle it if I saw that look on her face for a second time.

Luckily for me, my prayers seemed to be answered, because instead of a downcast expression, her face instead suddenly scrunched up and her eyebrows furrowed. She looked super pissed again.

_Um, is it too late to change my wish Mr. Genie?_

"So someone was just messing with me this whole time?!" she suddenly growls.

I flinch back slightly in my seat, startled at her display of fury.

"When I find out who did it, I'm gonna make them pay…" she whispers to no one in particular.

Holy crap! Those were the words of a true vengeful spirit. Maybe I really was at a meeting with a crime lord after all.

"Sorry. I guess somebody really got us good, eh…" I offer this halfhearted apology to her. It's not my fault that this happened, but I hope that my words can offer her even a modicum of comfort.

Surprisingly, it seems like they do. Her shoulders that were tense a moment earlier, seem to fall a bit and she breathes out a large breath. "Yeah…" she mutters.

We sit there in silence for a few moments, pondering our own thoughts, before something like recognition seems to pass over her features.

"Wait," she begins. I look at her quizzically. "So, if someone else sent that message, and it _wasn't _you… then how did you know to come here in the first place?"

Her eyes shine, and I can tell that she's thinking hard about how this could possibly be.

I freeze.

Wait, she was totally right.

I suddenly jam my fingers into my pocket. From there, I pull out a crumpled up piece of parchment. In it are a scribbled set of numbers.

_8700 Soryu Way. 13:00. 12. _

I attempt to press the note out flat so that the numbers are easier to read.

"…Well, the truth is that I found this note in my pocket after I woke up on the sidewalk," I say, my eyes once again scanning those scrawled numbers for clues. "I had no idea what it meant at first, but I slowly pieced it together, and it ended up bringing me here."

She nods. "…but you don't remember how the note got there in the first place, right?"

"No more than I remember anything else that happened in the past few days," I answer solemnly. She gives me a look of understanding. "I guess I thought that maybe I had written it as a reminder for myself, but now I'm not so sure that's the case," I admit.

She takes a moment to consider my explanation. However, her interest is suddenly captured by something else. Her eyes squint to focus on something. I see that all of her attention has suddenly shifted to the note. "Hold on a second. This seems familiar somehow." She pauses to contemplate for a mere half-second before her eyebrows arc up, and she grabs her phone that was resting on the table.

She unlocks it and lines the note and phone up, side by side.

"Look," she says, pointing between the two.

I oblige and peer at the objects laid out in front of me.

"Are you trying to contrast the negative effects of technology with the classic traditionalism of print media? I agree with the thought, but I don't think right now is the time for that."

She slaps my shoulder. "Tch, obviously not. Look at the fourth text in the conversation."

Rubbing my shoulder, I do as she says, and suddenly I see her point.

_(4:29 PM) 8700 Soryu Way. 13:00. 12. _

A shiver rolls down my spine. The way that message is formatted is exactly the same as in the note I had found in my pocket.

There was no chance that it could be a coincidence.

"Spooky…" I whisper, my mind reeling.

"Don't be dumb. It's not spooky. It's our first real clue," she says with a steel edge in her voice.

I raise my eyebrow and look at her. The look of determination on her face in that moment is no joke at all. Her jaw is set and her mouth is curved down in a tiny frown. For some reason, a small smirk breaks out on my face as I see her eyes alight with fire.

I feel sorry for anyone that stands in her way on her path to righteous vengeance.

It's the voice of that determined girl that brings me out of my thoughts. "So the question now is: who was the person that gave you that note?" she muses. "Because chances are, the person who did that is the same one behind the texts."

Whoa. I think I've really underestimated Kawasaki all this time.

I obviously knew she wasn't dumb or anything, but I always got the impression that she mostly skated by without ever trying her absolute hardest.

So this is how she could get when she focused all of her effort on something huh? It seemed like not only had her resolve increased by ten points, but so too had her deductive skills. Color me impressed.

"Yeah, I don't have the slightest clue who it could be…" I begin to say. However, suddenly I remember something. Or someone, rather.

The man who had checked on me after I had gotten hit by the car. He seemed like he was in quite a rush to move on after seeing if I was alright. Could it be possible that he slipped the note into my pocket while I was unconscious…?

I shook my head. It was a truly stupid thought. What possible motive could a random guy on the street have for setting me up on a fake date with someone (Unless he was hired?! Nah…)? I felt a bit of guilt for doubting the intentions of that kind man. Out of the goodness of his heart, he had made sure that I was still breathing, and here I was casting doubt on him for no reason.

_I'm so sorry sir-san…_

"...So will you or not?"

My eyelashes flutter as I hear those words. "Huh?" I ask with a confused look on my face. Having been occupied with my hopeless thoughts, I think I zoned out and completely missed what she had said.

She huffs in annoyance. I can tell she doesn't like repeating herself, and I don't blame her. We're the same in that regard.

"I said," she begins with annoyance. "Will you help me find the bastard that set all of this up?"

I can tell that this whole experience has been a bit embarrassing and maybe even a little upsetting for her. However, instead of dwelling on it and cursing into the wind about her cruel fortune, it seems like she's channeled that embarrassment into a cold determination.

I can't help but find it slightly charming.

She sighs. "I know this whole thing has already been a huge bother for you. I mean, you got into an accident and lost your memory for crying out loud…" she mutters. "So I'd get it if you just wanted to forget that this ever happened and move on already…"

She shakes her head slightly as she says these words, and the subtle scent of lavender tickles my nose again.

Despite her limited vocabulary, I feel like I understand her completely.

"Nah, I'm with you. Let's go solve this," I answer with my own steely resolve.

* * *

**AN: **I loved some of your guys' ideas about who the perpetrator could be. Some were definitely on the right track, and others just made me break out laughing. Love it. Thanks for the feedback.


	5. Motive

**Chapter 5: Motive**

"So all things considered, the only clue we really have to go off of is this note," I say with a small frown.

Truth be told, it really didn't tell us much in the grand scheme of things.

After analyzing the handwriting, I came to the conclusion that I was not a handwriting expert.

The only deductions I could make about it were that one: whoever wrote it needed a couple or maybe a thousand lessons in penmanship, and two: just write 1 PM next time. I'm not European or in the military, damn it.

The silver-haired girl across from me looks like she's deep in thought. Her hands are still absently toying with her fork, but it's obvious that her mind is elsewhere.

Hello? Earth to SakiSaki. I'm talking to you here.

"Yo," I call to get her attention.

That seems to snap her out of her reverie. "H-Huh?" she asks with a slightly startled expression.

"What are you thinking about? Did you figure something out?" I ask.

"O-Oh," she begins shakily. "…Not exactly. But I guess I do have a couple of thoughts," she answers vaguely.

Leave it to this girl to speak in such a roundabout way. Usually she was too direct for her own good, but right now, as she was delving deep into her own mind in a search for answers, she seemed a lot less outwardly intense. I guess she was channeling all of her concentration into thinking about how to proceed and her usually intense aura was dulled a bit.

In order to get her to spit it out already, I decide to prod her further. "…and are you going to tell me about them, or should I just keep twiddling my thumbs here?"

Okay, so maybe my remark came out a little bit more sarcastically than intended, but hey, I meant it as a joke.

She glares at me. "What the heck is with that attitude? If you're going to be like that then I won't bother telling you."

Oh crap. She was getting annoyed again.

"Please forgive me. I spoke without thinking and I apologize for my insolent behavior. It won't happen again," I bow in humility.

She shakes her head exasperatedly. "You have too much energy…" Heaving a huge sigh, Kawasaki finally cuts to the chase and begins to explain her thoughts. "Well, you're right that we don't have a lot to go on right now. Our only two clues are the note you found and the text messages that were sent to me," she establishes. "However, I was thinking about it and realized that there's always one essential factor that should be considered when attempting an investigation."

I lift an eyebrow at her uncharacteristic use of language. It surprised me that she knew such big words and even more that she knew how to string them together like that. She actually sounded kinda cool…

"When confronted with a question, it's what a detective is supposed to focus their attention on right away."

"And what's that?" I ask curiously.

"Motive," she answers firmly.

"…So you watch CSI too huh?" I ask with a little snort.

Somewhere along the way, her speech had sparked some recognition in me. It was as she mentioned the word detective that my memory of all things CSI-related came flooding back to my cerebrum.

So she was a woman of culture as well.

"I-It's not like that… Shut up," she growled, before sighing. "It's just that I used to have to babysit my siblings during the weekends and there were always marathons running at night on CBC. It was the only thing on that wasn't completely boring."

Ah. I used to watch those marathons all the time back in the day. After all, it wasn't like I had anything better to do on weekends myself.

For some reason, it felt like an interesting little footnote that Kawasaki and I probably watched those programs at exactly the same time way back when, and we didn't even know it.

"But do you get what I mean or not?" she eventually asks.

I nod. "Yeah. You're saying we should start thinking about the people who could possibly have the motives for pulling this prank on us."

"Right," she says in agreement.

"…any ideas?" I eventually ask after being unable to think of anything remotely helpful.

She takes a second to think. "Well, it's not like I have that many enemies or anything," she muses quietly.

That came as a surprise to me. With a face and temperament like that, I was surprised she didn't antagonize every single person she met. She was lucky she didn't have a bounty on her head, really.

"The only one who would come close, I guess, would be Miura," Kawasaki says.

I raise an eyebrow in amusement. "You're really on that bad of terms with her huh?"

"Tch." She lets out an annoyed sound. "She's prissy and bossy, and she thinks the whole world revolves around her. Obviously we don't see eye to eye on anything."

I couldn't help but agree with her there. Kawasaki and Miura were completely different individuals with totally different attitudes towards… well, everything.

If I had to construct an analogue for their relationship, I'd put it on a similar level to the relationship I had with Hayama Hayato. I didn't hate him per se, but we were just too different to ever become anything close to real friends.

It was probably even worse for Kawasaki though because while Hayama would act friendly to me for the sake of his image, Miura didn't seem to share that sense of civility. She would chew you up and spit you out if she didn't like the way your face looked that day.

Maybe Kawasaki was on to something after all.

"Think she hates you enough to pull something like this?"

Kawasaki nods curtly. "Honestly, I wouldn't put it past her. She's been really getting on Hina's case lately about how much time she spends with me. I guess miss queen bee isn't a huge fan of sharing," she says with a scoff.

"That's a possible motive," I point out.

Kawasaki nods in agreement and her face begins to scrunch up. "The more I think about it, the more it's starting to make sense. She probably stole my number from Hina somehow, and then sent those messages to me as payback for daring to come between her and her precious group of friends."

Like Kawasaki had said, it honestly did seem plausible. Miura did potentially have a motive to pull a stunt like this on Kawasaki. It felt a bit rude of me to say, but this level of petty revenge seemed right up her alley.

"So should we confront her tomorrow then? Try to get her to fess up or something?" I ask.

Kawasaki shakes her head. "Actually, I have some insider knowledge that might help."

I look at her inquiringly. "What do you mean? Like stock tips?"

She rolls her eyes. "What are you even talking about? No," she rebuffs. "Hina offhandedly mentioned to me that Miura's playing in a tennis match at the school today at two," she begins. "We can head over to the school and as soon as her match is done, we can jump her and settle things there."

As she says this, her eyes once again adopt a hard and steely countenance.

"…And by settle things, you mean talk to her and find out the truth right?" I ask unsurely.

She looks back at me and then awkwardly at the table. "Er, right…"

I arch an eyebrow at her. Was she planning on her beating her up or something?! Was that what she was initially thinking?

Geez, somebody take this girl to anger management classes already.

"Alright, sounds like a plan. Let's head over there," I say.

She nods in agreement. "Could we stop by my house first though? If ya don't mind. I want to change out of this thing already. It's kind of uncomfortable."

For some reason, in the back of my mind, I feel a tiny sting of sadness. This was probably the only time I'd ever see Kawasaki in a dress. It felt rare in a way so it almost seemed like I was losing something. Still, it wasn't like I could argue. In fact, the truth was that I was itching to follow in her example.

"Actually, yeah. I want to get out of these clothes too. They're cutting off my circulation," I say. "We live pretty close to each other, so let's stop there together real quick."

Her eyes seem to flash with something I can't quite identify but she nods. "Y-Yeah. Sure."

We ask for the check and proceed to pay for our meals. I offer to pay for her, but she huffs and tells me not to be stupid. We end up going Dutch.

As we make our way to the door, the host from before gives us a cold stare.

"Thanks for doing business," he bows stiffly.

As we both make our way outside into the blazing sun, we both say something at the same time.

"Pompous jerk."

We look at each other in surprise and can't help but chuckle quietly.

* * *

**AN: **I've actually never watched CSI before, so please don't crucify me if I'm totally off base here. As usual, thanks for all your feedback. It's much appreciated. More is always welcome as well 😉


	6. Mission

**Chapter 6: Mission**

Kawasaki and I decided to take a taxi back to our neighborhood.

I ended up abandoning my bike, leaving it tied to the post near the restaurant. I felt slightly guilty about it, but the police would probably cut it loose and send it off to the junkyard after a day or two, so it wasn't the biggest deal.

We stopped by Kawasaki's house first and I wait in her living room while she changes out of her dress and into something more comfortable.

After she comes down the stairs, I notice that she's changed into a pair of dark jeans, a black blouse, and a thin grey sweatshirt.

It's a simple yet effective outfit that seems fashionable and functional.

It looks good on her.

"What are you looking at?" she asks, and I shrug and turn my eyes away.

After that, we head to my house, which is only around five blocks away from hers.

Coming into the house, I notice that all the outdoor shoes are gone. My parents must have either been called into work for mandatory overtime or gone off together on a romantic lunch date or something (it was the former, no doubt about it).

Surprisingly, Komachi's shoes are missing too. Usually she liked to laze around on Sundays, but she did have a lot of friends, so most likely she was at the mall or a movie or wherever else properly-socialized middle schoolers headed off to in their free time.

Once we make it through the front door of my house, I invite Kawasaki into the living room and immediately rush up to my room to change. I end up settling on a simple gray button up shirt and blue jeans as my outfit of choice. After, I head back downstairs.

"Your house is really nice," Kawasaki comments offhandedly. For some reason, her cheeks are slightly pink.

"Huh? Our houses are the same model, so they're basically identical," I respond. Since we pretty much lived in the same neighborhood, our houses were constructed based off of the same blueprints. The only difference was that our homes were flipped, like mirror images of each other, but other than that, there were effectively no differences in the floorplan.

She fixes me with an annoyed look. "That's not what I meant. I just meant that it's really clean and well-organized! That's all."

She looks down sullenly in annoyance. Her house didn't seem messy to me, but now that I thought about it, I guess mine did seem a bit more organized. It couldn't be helped. My mother was an obsessive neat freak and since there were only two children in my household and neither of us were particularly messy, the house usually stayed pretty clean.

On the other hand, Kawasaki had three other siblings, two of which were really young. The fact that her house didn't look like a warzone was a miracle in itself, all things considered.

She probably did most of the cleaning in her house too, didn't she…

Wow, her onee-san skills were truly something to be admired.

"Your house looks pretty good considering your little siblings," I say in my best attempt to compliment her.

"Are you saying my siblings are destructive or something?" she asks with narrow eyes.

Gah. It was supposed to be a compliment, lady. This girl was seriously too overprotective when it came to her family...

"Never mind," I roll my eyes. "Let's head out now. The timing might be tricky since we have to catch Miura after her game ends but before she goes home."

Kawasaki nods. "Right. If we head to Sobu now, we should make it right on time."

After the conclusion of that conversation, we head out and quickly make our way to Sobu High by foot. Although the school can't exactly be called close by any means, it's not too far either. We keep a brisk pace and make it to the campus before long.

* * *

As expected, there's a rather large crowd gathered near the tennis courts.

We both make our way over there and upon getting close enough, start to hear the telltale grunts of exertion that inevitably accompany a tennis match.

We move toward the bleachers and sit down, our eyes scanning for a certain green-eyed, blonde-haired saboteur.

It doesn't take long before we spot her.

"Yah!"

With a fierce yell, Miura Yumiko ferociously smashes the ball into her opponent's side of the court and scores another point. From the looks of it, it appears that she's absolutely destroying her opposition. With any luck, this match will be over within the half hour.

"Say, isn't Saika on the tennis team too?" Kawasaki suddenly asks. "Shouldn't the captain be here to coach the team?"

I shake my head somberly. "This is the girls' meet. Totsuka's a boy."

Kawasaki pauses. "Oh yeah. I forgot."

Roughly fifteen minutes later, the match ends and unsurprisingly, Miura Yumiko is declared the winner.

The other girls on the team congratulate her and she basks in their praise, smirking confidently after taking a sip from her obnoxiously pink water bottle.

"Come on," I nod to Kawasaki.

She follows closely behind me as we make our way towards Miura.

Miura, having just finished her match, is making her way towards the girls' locker room to freshen up when she's suddenly stopped by a sharp voice.

"Hey."

Miura's face scrunches up in annoyance before even seeing the owner of that voice.

"Huh?" she mutters sharply, before turning around.

She takes the chance to gaze upon the person who had dared to address her. I didn't think it possible, but her face turns even more sour once she recognizes who that person is.

"Kawasaki, huh…" she mutters, her green eyes narrowing into slits like those of a cobra.

Crap! What have I gotten myself into?

The aura between these two girls seemed to turn immediately vicious. The air was suddenly thick with tension.

I swallow nervously.

Miura's eyes suddenly flick to the side contemptuously, as if to regard a piece of trash. "Hikio too eh?"

I wave.

"What the heck do you guys want?" she asks with a frown.

Kawasaki is the one to answer that question.

"I know what you did… I bet you thought it was really funny, didn't you…" she says with a snarl.

Whoa there Saki-chan! Tone it back a bit. I thought we both agreed that we were going to interrogate her first? Don't just jump directly into accusations.

In situations like this, you need to build to it with a little bit more subtlety than that, if for no other reason than to slowly coax the truth out of your enemy.

If you just go straight for the throat, there's a chance she'll deny it and you won't end up getting anywhere. You have to slowly trap her and only strike when she's effectively cornered.

I also learned that from CSI.

"What are you going on about?" Miura asks.

I decide to butt in before Kawasaki can completely rattle our suspect and render her uncooperative. "Hey, Miura-san," I begin casually. She turns to look at me but doesn't say anything. "Me and Kawasaki just got back from a nice little restaurant," I continue carefully. "The food was delicious, but a little on the expensive side."

I pause here, and she raises an eyebrow, her patience suddenly looking paper thin. "Huh? Why the hell are you telling me this? Do you think I care what either one of you does?"

Ow, her words sting a bit, but I press on, ignoring them. "It was a charming place. Pretty fancy actually. It's located over on Soryu Way. It's called the _Corte Bella."_

I pause again.

This was another technique I had picked up. In an interrogation, you have to give the suspect some dead air to choke on. If they're truly guilty, the silence will often cause them to slip up and reveal some crucial piece of information that they weren't intending on sharing.

"What is this loser even talking about…" Miura mumbles disbelievingly. However, after a moment, suddenly her face lights up with some form of understanding.

First, she looks at me. Then at Kawasaki. Then back to me again, before saying, "Wait, wait, wait. Is this your way of trying to announce to me that you and Kawasaki are officially dating or something?! Seriously? That's hilarious!"

She starts to break out in a fit of coarse laughter.

My cheeks begin to warm as I stare at that cackling maniac. I look over to Kawasaki, who has been doing a fantastic job of biting her tongue by the way, and her face also seems to be red. However, I doubt embarrassment is the sole reason for it.

"Why, you…" she growls. "Just admit it already! You sent me those fake texts to humiliate me! How the hell did you get my number anyway, huh? Did you steal it from Hina's phone? That's low, even for you!"

I wanted to facepalm. Dang it Kawasaki, you were doing so well.

Miura's laughter cuts off abruptly, and she stares down the silver-haired girl. "Hah? Fake texts? I swear, you and your boyfriend are making less and less sense every minute."

"Admit it. You're just mad that I've been spending time with Hina and you can't stand for one of your pawns to be loyal to anyone but you!" Kawasaki exclaims heatedly.

Miura utters a deep warning with her eyes. I imagine that if she were a rattlesnake, her rattle would have been vibrating dangerously at this point.

"Listen. I don't like that Hina hangs out with you because I just don't like _you_. Period," she begins coldly. I wince. "But I'm not her keeper. It's her life so she can do whatever she wants. I don't know what you mean by fake texts but if you think I would waste my time messing with you, then you're barking up the wrong tree."

Upon hearing this, Kawasaki pauses and her eyes widen. Her fists that were balled up and tense, uncurl and her fingers begin to lightly shake.

To my ears, Miura's words sounded like the truth.

"I mean, if you and Hikio end up spending all your time together like lovesick idiots and that means you have less time to spend with Hina, then I wouldn't necessarily mind that. But as far as anything else is concerned, you can bite me."

With that, she turns to stroll away, her tennis racket held over her shoulder, and her nose pointed high.

Neither me nor Kawasaki make any motion to stop her.

I stand there for a moment, basking in the information that has just been presented to us.

It looks like we can officially cross Miura off our suspect list then. I fancied myself good at detecting lies, and I had to say that her words struck me as genuine. Harsh as all hell, but genuine nonetheless.

I look to my left and I'm met with an unexpected sight.

Kawasaki's looking down. Her long, silver hair is hanging over her face and I can't see her expression.

Uh oh.

"…You alright?" I ask carefully.

I hear a breath being taken, and she eventually nods once.

"I can't stand her…" she whispers quietly. Her voice is fraught with frustration but also tinted with something that sounded like resignation. "…but she wasn't the one who did it."

I nod in recognition.

It seemed like Miura and Kawasaki really were too different to understand each other, after all.

I couldn't say that I didn't understand her feelings.

Some people just rub you the wrong way and manage to push all the wrong buttons. Sometimes there's nothing you can do to change that.

Kawasaki continues to stare at her feet, her hands unconsciously fumbling with the material of her grey sweatshirt.

I decide to move closer to her.

Perhaps against my better judgment, I gently wrap my arm around her shoulder and give it a light squeeze.

_She's kinda warm…_

I shake my head to clear those thoughts away.

It had felt like a hasty decision, but for whatever reason, I'd found myself wanting to comfort her somehow.

At first, she freezes, but after a brief moment, she relaxes and breathes out.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt thankful that she didn't punch my lights out.

We stand there for a few moments before Kawasaki finally asks a question.

"…What now? That was our only lead," she moans.

I slowly remove my arm from her shoulder and put it to my chin. "No clue," I answer.

We lean against a nearby fence and stay silent for a while.

Kawasaki was right. After losing this lead, we didn't have anything else to go on really. As far as I knew, I didn't have any enemies of my own that would care about me enough to pull something like this, and what Kawasaki had said also rung true.

She didn't interact with many other people in the first place, so if it wasn't Miura who had the motive to send those messages, then she was similarly hard pressed to think of anyone else who could have done it.

"…Do you think we could consult the Service Club for help?"

Her words catch me off guard, and I raise an eyebrow at her. "Huh? What for…"

She shrugs lightly. "I don't know. Maybe Yuigahama or Yukinoshita could help us find something that we've been overlooking," she says.

I mean, it's not a terrible idea on the surface.

However, if we were to confront the two of them about this situation, we would have to tell them all the details of what had happened…

It went without saying that they would make fun of me thoroughly for this one. I wasn't sure if I was ready to handle that sort of abuse.

I was actually somewhat surprised that Kawasaki was willing to ask them for help on something like this. She was a fiercely independent girl—sometimes to a fault—and I'm sure she had considered the implications of telling the others about this as well. I guess in her mind, getting to the bottom of this mystery was more important to her than any concerns she might have over being embarrassed.

"I guess it could be worth a shot," I start. "But today's a weekend, so I don't know what they're up to. They might be busy."

Kawasaki nods in understanding. "…I'll text Yuigahama and you text Yukinoshita?" she asks, looking up at me with round teal eyes.

I decide to look at my feet before answering.

"I actually don't have Yukinoshita's number," I say truthfully.

For some reason, Kawasaki looks at me with a curious gaze. "Really? I thought you two were… I don't know… close or something…"

She trails off quietly as she says that last part.

I merely shrug in response. "I guess we can tolerate each other now more than we could before, but I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that we're particularly close or anything."

Kawasaki blinks once before slowly turning her attention back to her phone. "R-Right. Then I'll text Yuigahama and hopefully she'll be able to get in touch with Yukinoshita."

"Sounds good," I answer.

A cool breeze passes by as we stand there, side by side, leaning against a fence in the shadow of a school building. Despite the situation and the events that have just transpired, it feels almost… comfortable, somehow.

Eyes closed and breathing out soft breaths, we both settle into a quiet rhythm and wait for Yuigahama's response.

* * *

**AN: **So if Miura wasn't the perpetrator, then who could it have been? Hmm... This story is coming to a conclusion soon, so get your last guesses in while you can. A hint or two were perhaps dropped somewhere in this chapter. Also, I don't know why but in my headcanon, I guess Hachiman and Kawasaki live in the same neighborhood. This detail was mentioned wayyy back in my earliest story if anyone remembers. Just a tidbit. Thanks, as always, for reading.


	7. Consultation

**Chapter 7: Consultation**

"Whaa? Are you serious? That sounds like something straight out of a movie!"

The pink haired girl in front of me seems both surprised and excited. Her eyes are wide and she's staring at the both of us with an O-shaped mouth.

"Yep. It's the truth," I answer simply.

Kawasaki shifts slightly in her seat, looking a bit uncomfortable as Yuigahama's gaze moves between us.

After texting Yuigahama to ask for her help with our case, Kawasaki and I had waited patiently for an answer.

It didn't take long before Kawasaki's phone had lit up, signifying that Yuigahama had responded.

_(4:37 PM) Rly? Hikkis w you? That's so weird! But Im actually with Yukinon right now! She says if its a service club request then she doesnt mind at all. Where shud we meet u!?_

Damn, that girl really needs to learn how to text properly. It's embarrassing, quite frankly.

"Indeed," a calm voice speaks. "It does seem like a rather bizarre series of events."

The one who says this is Yukinoshita. She sips carefully from her drink as she gazes upon us.

Like Yuigahama had said in her text, she and Yukinoshita had coincidentally been hanging out together when Kawasaki had messaged to request a meeting. As a result, it made our lives a lot easier since they both were able to show up together without too much trouble.

For our choice of location, we had chosen a Skybucks that wasn't too far from the school and was within walking distance of Yukinoshita's apartment.

It was a nice location that was tucked away in the back corner of a shopping plaza near Downtown Chiba. As a result, it wasn't overly crowded. For whatever reason, in spite of this, I swore I kept feeling eyes on the back of my head as I sat at that table with the others.

"…However, despite the intrigue and mystery of the situation, the single most fantastical part of the story to me is that someone actually agreed to go on a date with you in the first place, Hikigaya-kun," Yukinoshita says with a small smirk.

_Ah, I get it already._

Now that the situation had been revealed to them, I was fully expecting this mockery at my expense.

I roll my eyes and open my mouth to say something before another voice suddenly cuts in.

"And why is that so hard to believe?"

That voice belonged to Kawasaki Saki.

It was actually the first thing (other than a quick hello) that she had said since we had met up with the other two. I ended up doing most of the explaining to Yuigahama and Yukinoshita while she just sat there quietly with a slightly embarrassed expression on her face.

However, the expression she currently wore was one of challenge.

Yukinoshita regards the silver-haired girl sitting in front of her with a curious expression. "I didn't mean that as an insult to you, Kawasaki-san. I was just surprised that you would bother to show such a courtesy to Hikigaya-kun in the first place. It was a rather selfless thing for you to do is what I mean."

"Hey, I'm sitting right here you know. Don't insult me by talking around me please," I interject helplessly.

Kawasaki deflates a bit at Yukinoshita's words and mutters something that sounds like "Well… it wasn't really…" before cutting herself off and then sighing. "Never mind. So can you guys help us or what?"

Upon hearing Kawasaki's response, Yukinoshita's demeanor seems to change and she begins to refocus her attention on the present situation. She puts a finger to her chin before saying, "Well, in my opinion, you two were wise to pinpoint Miura as your foremost suspect. A spiteful and juvenile prank like this one seems right in line with her modus operandi."

Ouch. I guess Kawasaki wasn't the only one who had a bone to pick with Miura. Unsurprisingly, Yukinoshita didn't seem to hold the highest opinion of the blonde girl either.

"However, since you've already exhausted that option and she is no longer under suspicion, I believe you'll need to reexamine the clues at your disposal once again. Namely, the note and the messages," Yukinoshita finishes.

Yuigahama nods in agreement. "Yeah… Um, maybe there's something you're missing… like some essential clue that's hidden somewhere in the texts," she adds. "Could we look at them?"

I look to Kawasaki, my eyes slightly sympathetic.

From the way she had reacted when I had asked to look at her phone earlier, I knew that she was a rather private person. She didn't like to have her dirty laundry aired for everyone to see, and I couldn't blame her for that. However, in this situation, if we wanted help, it didn't seem like we had any other choice but to provide Yukinoshita and Yuigahama with all of the information we had.

Kawasaki seems to agree because she hesitantly nods once before pulling out her phone and pulling up the messages from the unknown number.

I pull out the piece of parchment and lay it out for them to examine.

After a minute or two of scrutiny, the two girls sitting in front of us finish their inspection. They turn their eyes up to address us.

However, for whatever reason, their faces are slightly pink.

I raise an eyebrow. "So what do you think? Did you notice anything strange?"

The two girls look at each other for a split second before Yukinoshita coughs. "Ahem. Well, the writer of those messages appears to be… quite the poet."

"Y-Yeah. It was actually kind of… sweet…" Yuigahama mutters.

I stare at them in disbelief. Did we read totally different messages or something?

"Are you guys serious?" I ask them incredulously.

Whoever wrote that nonsense was clearly a charlatan. If writing meaningless, cheesy crap like that were all it took to be a successful poet then I could publish my middle school diary, which was full of inane garbage like that (mostly about a middle-school-girl-that-shall-not-be-named), and instantly become a millionaire.

"Can you believe them?" I look over to Kawasaki to confirm my disbelief, but I notice that her face is also a shade of the scarlet variety.

She seems to start a bit as she notices my eyes on her. "R-Right… It's all just meaningless garbage…" she stutters out.

I felt like I had just fallen into the twilight zone.

Regardless, I decide to press on anyway.

"Okay…" I begin. "So aside from deducing that our perpetrator has a silver tongue, what else you got?" I ask.

Predictably, Yukinoshita is the first to answer. "Hmm, well from what I can tell, the texting style of the sender doesn't resemble your way of speaking very much, Hikigaya-kun."

I nod in agreement. "Yeah. I noticed that right away too. Obviously, I wouldn't write such flowery crap."

Yukinoshita shakes her head lightly. "Your lack of charm and poetic ability aside, what I mean is that there are some lines in the messages that are intoned with a very distinct sense of enthusiasm," she says. "An enthusiasm which you do not and have likely never possessed."

"Hey…" I mutter.

Yuigahama decides to chime in. "You're so right Yukinon! That's true! Even in texts, Hikki never uses exclamation points or says 'LOL' or 'hehe' or anything! He usually just responds with one-word answers or some stupid mean sentence that doesn't even make sense!"

_Gah, is that what you really think of me Yuigahama? _

And it's not that what I say doesn't make sense, okay? It's that it just doesn't make sense to you.

Also, I do occasionally type 'LOL' but definitely not in response to the terrible memes she sends me. It's not my fault that her sense of humor is awful.

"So what? What does that tell us about anything?" Kawasaki asks a bit tetchily.

"Well, it provides us with a possible clue as to the sender's identity," Yukinoshita begins. Her words capture all of our attentions and we wait patiently for her to continue. "When writing something, be it a message or an essay or what have you, it is incredibly difficult to entirely prevent one's personality from leaking into his or her work. Be it through words, the tone of the message, or even the use of punctuation, there will always be an element to a person's writing that identifies it as uniquely their own."

I nod. As usual, Yukinoshita's observations were accurate. I couldn't argue with what she said in the slightest.

"In the messages, I believe that the sender was attempting to emulate Hikigaya's style of communication, that is: direct and blunt declaratory statements," Yukinoshita continues. "However, in some parts of the messages, not only are exclamation points used, but the final message even includes the word 'heh' in it. I believe that at these points, the sender unknowingly allowed their personality to slip into the message. With some analysis, I believe these mistakes could possibly give us some insight to their identity."

Yuigahama's eyes are as wide as saucers as she grabs Yukinoshita's arm and lightly begins to shake it. "Wow…" she breathes. "You're amazing Yukinon!"

I look over at Kawasaki to gauge her reaction. Based on her understanding expression, it seems as if she also buys Yukinoshita's explanation, more or less.

"So what do you think?" I decide to ask her.

Snapped out of her thoughts, she looks at me and says, "Y-Yeah. I think Yukinoshita's on to something here."

I nod in agreement.

"Thank you, Kawasaki-san," Yukinoshita acknowledges politely. "So, Hikigaya-kun. What do _you _think?"

I begin to ponder this new information. After a moment, I decide to share my own thoughts.

"Well, if I had to make a claim, I'd say that the person who wrote that message is probably someone who likes to use a lot of pointless exclamations in order to either improve the mood of the conversation or to get attention," I muse. "My guess is a person like that most likely has a personality type that's bubbly or sly."

The first person who came to mind when I thought of the word _bubbly _was Yuigahama, but since she was here with me, and because I doubted she could ever do something as mean-spirited as sending a fake text, I immediately ruled her out as a suspect.

That brought me to the other word. _Sly_. The first person that sprang to my thoughts when I thought of _that _word was Isshiki Iroha.

"…Isshiki's pretty sly. Too sly for her own good sometimes," I say.

"Eh?! Do you really think Iroha-chan is behind this?" Yuigahama asks in a loud and disbelieving tone.

I cringe at her loud exclamation before giving a half-hearted shrug. "Not necessarily, but it's not like I can rule her out from the get-go either."

"Isshiki huh…"Kawasaki wrinkles her nose at the subject. "I mean, I know that little fox seems to be obsessed with you for some reason, but why would she try to set you up with _me _though? I barely even know her," Kawasaki says.

Hmm, indeed.

It was a legitimate question that Kawasaki had just raised. Although Isshiki did fit the perfunctory profile that I had just constructed, the fact of the matter was that she didn't have a clear motive that we could identify. She had few to no ties to Kawasaki and I didn't see what she had to gain from setting up a fake date between the two of us.

"That's true," I answer with a small breath. I take a long sip at my coffee before eventually addressing her with a quiet gaze. "You have any other ideas then?"

She shakes her head lightly. "Yukinoshita brought up some good points but I'm not really sure that those observations of hers are of much help when we have so little information to go on," she mutters. "Without more, it feels like we're just blindly reaching around in the dark."

I nod. Sadly, I feel the same way.

Simply put, it seemed as though we didn't have the information necessary in order to lead us to the truth, or even on the right path to that truth.

In a normal piece of mystery fiction, the who, why, and how of it all is typically set up by the author in a meticulous fashion. The author will include vague hints throughout the story in order to lead the reader in the right direction to either solve the mystery themselves or get somewhere close to it.

However, reality didn't really work that way. Without any definitive evidence or leads to go off of, it felt like we could only make half-sensical deductions and guesses with what limited knowledge we had. The note and messages were a promising start, but ultimately, they were a dead end.

…Was there a clue we were missing somewhere? Some little inconspicuous detail (or details) that had been presented to us in our own little story that had simply gone unnoticed?

Maybe.

Strangely enough, it _did_ feel like I was overlooking something. For some reason, it felt like there was a vital piece of information somewhere in all of this that I just somehow couldn't put my finger on.

Whether it had to do with my missing memories or if it was just a strange and coincidental case of jamais vu, I couldn't say with certainty.

Sighing quietly, I eventually turn to Yukinoshita. "Did you manage to deduce anything else from the messages or nah?" I ask.

Yukinoshita and Yuigahama who were both staring at Kawasaki's phone and the note, presumably in an attempt to search for more clues, both look up at me and shake their heads with slightly dejected expressions.

Damn.

That's that then.

If the combined brain power of all four of us couldn't produce anything else to go on, then it seemed like this was the end of the road for us.

It looked like nothing more could be done.

"Well, thanks for your help," I say as I down the rest of the coffee in my cup.

Yukinoshita nods once. "It was an official request of the Service Club, so there's no need for thanks," she says simply. "I apologize that we couldn't assist you in making any further progress."

"Sorry, Hikki. Like Saki-san said, I wish there was more to go on," Yuigahama offers apologetically.

"Don't worry about it. You did everything you could," I say.

Kawasaki finishes her own drink before turning to the other two girls. "Thanks for coming out to listen to our request," she bows lightly. "And um… sorry for bothering you guys on your day off."

Although I was willing to bet that Kawasaki wasn't in the best mood at this point either, it seemed like she was still able to show respect and courtesy to the members of the Service Club.

So she does have a grasp of how manners work then. She just usually never cares to show them, I guess.

Yukinoshita and Yuigahama both offer simple smiles.

"It was no bother, Kawasaki-san."

"No problem at all!"

With the conclusion of that conversation, Yukinoshita and Yuigahama bid us farewell and then proceed to exit the doors of the café. A quiet bell signifies their departure.

I look to Kawasaki.

"We could try meeting again tomorrow if you want. Maybe we'll be able to think of something if we rest on it," I offer.

At that, she turns her gaze toward me, and her teal irises stare into mine for a moment. She bites her lip, as if she's thinking about something.

For some reason, I find myself looking away.

After a beat, she shakes her head simply. "No… it's alright. I think… maybe we've spent enough time on this already," she sighs. "I'll just have to… let it go, I guess."

She averts her eyes to her feet.

Despite her neutral expression, her tone seems uncharacteristically gloomy.

"Oh… alright."

I turn my eyes to the empty cup in front of me.

Yeah. She was probably right.

It appeared that Kawasaki's righteous revenge and my piqued curiosity would both remain unfulfilled and unsatisfied.

It felt like a rather anticlimactic end to the craziness of the day, but that was reality for you, I suppose.

Sometimes—Well, _most _times really, things don't get wrapped up with a neat little bow. Problems and mysteries don't always get solved.

Sometimes, at the end of it, you're just stuck wondering why.

As I turn my eyes towards the window, I suddenly notice how dark it's gotten since we'd entered the shop.

"Hey. It's getting pretty late. The sun's setting," I say.

Upon hearing this, Kawasaki looks through the window to the dark orange sky. "Oh. Yeah."

I nod my head towards the door. "Come on. Let's get out of here. We should start heading home before it gets too dark."

She nods and with that, we both make our way out of the store with sullen looks on our faces.

As we take our first few steps out the door, we walk quietly together side-by-side.

Instead of looking straight ahead, Kawasaki appears to find something particularly interesting about the sidewalk because her eyes seem to remain permanently locked on some fixed point on the ground in front of her.

After a few minutes of walking, the silence unsettles me enough to the point where I want to say something.

Although I can't exactly put the 'why' of it into words, the gloomy and dejected atmosphere Kawasaki's giving off makes me want to break the silence that I normally have no problem endorsing.

It's true. I feel like I've said everything I could.

But somehow, I feel like that doesn't matter. It feels like it doesn't matter what I say, really, so long as I say something. It seems backwards, but for some strange reason, it feels like the overwhelmingly right thing to do at that moment.

So I open my mouth to say something. Another word of support maybe. "Ka—"

"**HEY!**"

However, before I can eke even one word from my lips, a loud voice suddenly reverberates through the streets.

Both Kawasaki and I stop dead in our tracks.

The noise had come from behind us…

Confused and concerned, our heads turn in unison.

Staring at that sight, our eyes widen.

* * *

**AN: **Sorry, I know it's been a while. I got caught up in some professional/academic duties recently and haven't had a chance to write. However, I hope this chapter makes up for it as it's slightly longer than the last few! Hope you guys enjoy. Thanks for your patience and as always, thanks for reading!


	8. The Foregone Conclusion

**Chapter 8: The Foregone Conclusion**

My eyes flit over to Kawasaki and we exchange a confused glance before turning back to stare at the owner of that voice.

We hear a flurry of hard and fast foot steps as that person approaches us with dizzying speed.

Before I even have a moment to react, that person's fist makes contact with my shoulder. Hard contact. I wince and attempt to put up my arms in a futile gesture of defense.

"STUPID ONII-CHAN! STUPID! STUPID! POOPFACE! WORTHLESSNII-CHAN!"

As that assailant continues to pound my shoulders with surprisingly hard fists, she yells multiple variations of the same insult.

"STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!"

My eyes flutter closed as I'm assaulted over and over and over again.

_Is this it..? Is this how I go out?_

Suddenly, the blows stop.

At first I cower, but eventually, I cautiously open one eye to see what's going on.

"Hey. That's enough," Kawasaki says with a steely edge in her voice.

Her hand is gripped around my little sister's wrist—not enough to hurt, but enough to stop Komachi from continuing her furious flurry. I shoot her a look of gratitude and start to rub gingerly at my now-tenderized arm.

"Komachi? What the heck are you doing here? And why did you just beat the crap out of me…?" I manage to grind out.

Kawasaki lets go of Komachi's wrist and Komachi suddenly stomps her foot on the ground. "You're so hopeless Onii-chan! Absolutely hopeless!"

I raise an eyebrow. "Right… Well, it's not that I'm not happy to see you my dear Komachi, but your onii-chan would like it very much if you could stop insulting him for a second and explain to him why you're so angry."

Suddenly we hear another set of footsteps clamber towards us. "Komachi-san! Why did you take off so fast like that! At least give me some time to catch up!"

The hairs on the back of my neck suddenly stand up. My nose twitches and my lips instinctively form into a low snarl.

I know that voice…

"Taishi? What are you doing here?! …Are you following Komachi-san?" Kawasaki asks, her face lined with a mixture of shock and confusion.

"O-Oh… Um… Hello nee-san… I just… um…"

It just had to be this guy, didn't it…

So this pathetic insect was still clinging onto my sister like a flea to a pup, it seemed. And just when I'd thought the day couldn't get any worse.

"Spit it out already. Speak Japanese, damn it," I can't help but say aloud.

"Um, I'm sorry!" the pest known as Kawasaki Taishi responds apologetically.

Kawasaki gives me a glare that could boil ice water. "Don't talk to him like that or _you'll_ be sorry."

The hairs on my neck once again stand on end. Geez, I guess the members of the Kawasaki family really have an odd sixth sense of knowing exactly how to rattle me.

Either way, with those intense murderous teal orbs staring me down, I can't help but acquiesce to her demands.

"Of course. I apologize sincerely," I bow quickly.

"Taishi-kun! Come and help me pound this stupid onii-chan of mine for me, would you?! I need help over here!" Komachi suddenly hollers.

"Taishi, you will do no such thing," Kawasaki says sternly.

"Why not! My dummy-chan over here needs to learn, and _clearly,_ he's incapable when left alone, so Komachi's just going to have to beat it into him! It's time for some tough love!"

"Komachi-san… Hikigay—_Your brother's_ had a long day. That really isn't appropriate right now…"

"Nonsense! Taishi get your butt over here and start wailing!"

"Taishi, stay right there."

"Hey, Taishi! Come on! Listen to me!"

"I-I don't know if I…"

***PHEW***

My near-deafening wolf whistle manages to put a halt to the chaotic scene that was unfolding before me.

All of the unanswered questions and this current bedlam were beginning to make my head spin, so I decided to utilize a technique that Hiratsuka-sensei liked to use when the class started to get a bit too rowdy.

Surprisingly, it worked wonders.

The three turn to look at me with curious expressions on their faces.

"Ahem," I cough somewhat awkwardly. "…Like I was saying before Komachi-chan, if you would be so kind, could you please explain to us why you're here?" Immediately, Komachi's brows furrow and her mouth begins to open into an angry scowl. "And if you could do so without calling me "stupid", "stupid-chan", "onii-idiot-chan", "Hachiman" or any combination of those, that would be much appreciated. Thanks."

Upon hearing this, Komachi closes her mouth for a second and frowns a deep frown. "Fine," she grumbles. She breathes out a large breath. "Onii-chan, like _I _said before, you are hopeless. Totally and utterly hopeless."

Ouch. A comment like that coming from my normally wonderful and caring sister really hit me right in the kokoro, but alas, I decide to press on. "Right, I got that part… Could you elaborate further?"

She fixes me with a half-lidded glare. "Do I really need to spell it out for you?"

"Yes please," I nod.

She heaves a long sigh.

"Where do I even start…" she whispers. "Well, I guess it would be best if I started from the top, wouldn't it?"

"That's generally where you'd start a story, yeah," I reply.

She fixes me with a half-lidded glare.

Clearly, she has little patience left for me. Now if only I could understand why.

"Okay Mr. Smarty pants, we'll start from the top then. Now _I_ have a question for you." She takes a moment to put her hand to her mouth and coughs a delicate little cough before practically screaming, "WHY THE HECK WERE YOU SO LATE HUH?!"

I wince at her loud voice and then raise an eyebrow at her violently combative tone. "Err… Late for what?"

"GRRGH sometimes I just want to throttle you onii-chan…" she grumbles. "I told you that you had to be AT the location by 1 pm! You didn't show up until like 1:35! I even wrote it down for you for pete's sake!"

"Huh? What location are you…"

Suddenly, a wave of realization washes over me.

_Wrote it down for me… 1 PM..? _

_8700 Soryu Way. 13:00. 12. _

My eyes widen.

_Wait. No… There's no way she could be talking about that… Absolutely no way…_

"Um… would you mind explaining further please…" I stammer out.

She gives me another lidded glare but eventually does as she's asked. "Yes, onii-chan, _that's _why I was pushing you out the door by 12:20! I did it so that you would have plenty of time to get there, but somehow your stupid butt still managed to mess it up! You were more than half an hour late! The plan was absolutely foolproof but somehow you still managed to screw it up! You're just lucky Saki-san over here has the patience of a saint and actually waited for you cuz' if it were me, I wouldn't have lasted even half as long!"

My eyes stay wide as I listened to my sister's impassioned tirade. "So, Komachi-chan… you were the one who put that note in my pocket? The one with the numbers… You wrote that?"

"Well, duh! Why are you asking such a stupid question at a time like this? You were the one who asked me to write it down for you!"

I found myself at a loss for words.

…If Komachi really was the one who had written that down, then that explained the missing gaps in my memory. At the very least, it explained where I was going… and why…

Well, partially why. I wasn't sure just _how _it was that Komachi had convinced me to show up at that location in the first place.

I opened my mouth to ask as much, however, before I could voice my question, another voice cut in sharply.

"Komachi-san… So what you're saying is… that it was _you _who told Hikigaya to meet at 8700 Soryu Way at 1 PM?" Kawasaki asked quietly. Her eyes were wide, and her thousand-yard gaze peered directly past me and straight at my little sister.

"O-Oh… Erm…" my sister's voice started to tremble a bit as she fixed her eyes on the older girl's terrifying visage. "W-Well…" she stammered out nervously. "…Yes?"

Kawasaki just continued to stare at my sister with those wide eyes.

_Oi Kawasaki… cut it out please. At this rate, I'm gonna start pissing my pants and you're not even aiming that glare at me…_

"…Why?" Kawasaki finally managed to utter. "Why did you tell him to go to that location at that specific time?"

"Er, well… I…" Komachi began to sweat bullets. Her eyes shifted back and forth until they finally settled on something—someone, rather. "Uhh, Taishi-kun here can explain it _way _better than I can! You explain it to her!"

The silver-haired girl's gaze immediately switched to focus on her younger brother. Having been sold out by his partner, the boy immediately began to start muttering incomprehensibly.

"H-Huh? M-Me? I don't really… know… I just… It was really… Not my idea to begin…"

"The truth, Taishi!" Kawasaki barked.

Taishi jumped upon hearing that harsh voice. "Sorry! Basically, it was all our idea! The date, the note, everything! We orchestrated it all, and we're incredibly, incredibly sorry!"

"TAISHI-KUN! YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO SPILL THE BEANS ALL AT ONCE LIKE THAT!" Komachi yelled.

"I'm sorry! I just couldn't stand to hold her gaze any longer…" Taishi whimpered. "Nee-chan can be really scary sometimes…"

It was rare that I'd agree with that guy, but I had to in that case. Kawasaki had the capacity to be pleasant; hell, at times she could actually act somewhat sweet… but when she got mad, she was damn scary. Her glare gave Yukinoshita's a run for her money and then some.

But what he had said confirmed my suspicions. So it was really these two all along huh…

"Why… why would the two of you do that? We've been searching all day for the bastard who did this, and it ends up being our own siblings? What were you two thinking?!" Kawasaki gritted out.

Komachi heaved a long sigh.

It seemed that now that the cat was out of the bag, Komachi's anger had mostly subsided. "I'm really sorry… I guess we kinda went about it in the wrong way, huh…" she said softly. She stared at her feet for a moment, looking contemplative. However, after that moment passed, her next words came out rather impassioned. "But I can't say that we did it for the wrong reasons! _Maybe _we could've done it a little cleaner, and _maybe_ we could've rearranged some of the moving pieces around a bit, but everything we did, we did because we believed in our mission! And because of that, I say that the ends justify the means!"

Upon hearing Komachi's zealous words, Kawasaki and I were both left with our mouths agape.

_What's with those incredibly charged words?! Should I start referring to you as Hangyaku no Komachi from now on or something?_

"Komachi-chan… what are you talking about? I get that you were the one who told me to meet at that restaurant." I said slowly. "…but I still don't really understand why. What exactly was your 'mission'?"

"Yeah, I still don't understand why you and Taishi of all people would try to embarrass me though… You're being way too vague here…" Kawasaki added tetchily.

Komachi suddenly threw her arms up in the air in what I was assuming was an exasperated gesture. "You still haven't figured it out yet?!" she groaned exasperatedly. "Man… you two really do deserve each other," she whispered to no one in particular.

Kawasaki and I both shot each other a confused and somewhat embarrassed glance.

"Uhh, what exactly is that supposed to mean?" I coughed.

Komachi blew a stray strand of hair out of her face before, "GAH! DON'T YOU GET IT? WE WERE TRYING TO SET YOU UP! YOU KNOW, LIKE ON A DATE!" She turned to me, "WE WANTED YOU, ONII-CHAN," and then to Kawasaki "AND YOU, SAKI-SAN," and then to both of us, "TO GET TOGETHER, DON'T YOU SEE?!"

I froze in place upon hearing that explanation. Although I wasn't looking at Kawasaki, from the corner of my peripheral vision, I could also tell that she froze in place as well. Heat suddenly rushed to my cheeks.

The only word I could manage to squeak out was… "Why?"

Komachi closed her eyes and put her fingers to the bridge of her nose. "Onii-chan, I mean this in the best possible way, but when it comes to romance, you're hopeless. One-hundred-percent undeniably hopeless and unreliable, and when it comes down to it, generally just all around pathetic," she said in what was probably the worst possible way. "And I know that _because_ you're so hopeless, you'd never put yourself out there on your own! You needed a push! So with the help of my co-conspirator here, I decided that I would help move things along for you! I did it all out of the goodness of my heart, Onii-chan! I really did!" she swore. Her eyes seemed to glisten with genuine concern, but for whatever reason, in a moment's notice, they quickly turned dark. "But even with all of my planning and my help, you still managed to screw it all up! Unbelievable!"

As the truth of her words began to register in my brain, I was left standing there with what was probably a completely idiotic expression on my face. "Er… and how did I screw it up exactly?" I eventually managed to get out.

"Well, like I said, you were more than half an hour late to the date, for one!" she glared. "But that's not even the worst of it! After lunch, you took Saki-san to Sobu High?! What's wrong with you? You could have taken her literally anywhere! A park, a museum, a coffee shop, anything! How could you think that the school was even a remotely good place to take a date? And it's Saturday too, so there's absolutely nothing to do there!" she bellowed. "And after that, you called up Yui-san and Yukino-san?! I mean, obviously, I love those two and all, but really Onii-chan? Calling up and inviting _other_ girls when you're on a date is obviously a huge no-no! I know you're hopeless, but I figured even you'd be able to figure out that much…" Komachi heaved another large sigh. It looked like she'd reached the end of her rope in terms of patience. "I just… I know we kind of set all of this up without letting you guys know but come on Onii-chan! I don't know how you managed to mess things up so badly."

Kawasaki, who had remained unnervingly silent throughout the entire process of the conversation, suddenly opened her mouth to speak. "…Is all of this true, Taishi?"

The younger of the siblings twitched uncomfortably before saying, "…Yeah. It's true."

I took the opportunity to look at Kawasaki's face. Oddly enough, I couldn't quite make out her expression. There looked to be a strange mix of emotions racing across her features. Surprise… A flash of annoyance… and a hint of relief maybe..?

"So how did you know that me and Hikigaya went to Sobu and then met up with Yukinoshita and Yuigahama afterwards?" she asked after a beat.

"O-Oh. Right… Yeah, about that…" Komachi laughed nervously. She blew out a sigh. "Well, I guess there's not really a point in playing coy anymore, huh?" she chuckled. "We've kinda been following you guys around all day."

"W-What?! You've been watching us? _Listening _to us?" Kawasaki asked. Suddenly, she was the one who was stammering. "H-How did we not see you? Where were you hiding?"

Komachi scratched her cheek nervously. "_Well_… We mostly watched from the shadows, so we weren't exactly able to listen to you guys… When you were in the restaurant, we sat in the café across the street and kinda just waited for you to come out," she continued. "And when you went to Sobu and to the café with Yui-san and Yukino-san, we pretty much just ducked behind some bushes and strained our ears to listen, but it was tough to both stay out of sight and also get close enough to hear anything, so in the end, we honestly couldn't really hear or see all that much..."

I shook my head. Damn. I still couldn't entirely believe what I was hearing. Regardless, I would have to have a long conversation with Komachi later about privacy and just how wrong it was to spy on people like that.

Kawasaki went silent.

She was staring at her feet, and her expression took on that strange, unreadable quality again.

Upon seeing Kawasaki's face, Komachi sighed. "Listen… I'm really sorry Saki-san… We're sorry we went so far… We just… wanted to… well, y'know…"

Before Komachi could finish, Taishi spoke up for the first time, without being prompted, during this meeting. "Nee-san… I'm really sorry…" he whispered quietly. "But I just… I've noticed that you've been working _so_ hard lately. You're always studying or going to your job and it seems like you're dedicating all your effort into these things, and you seem… tired," he continued softly. "I guess… I kinda just wanted you to have a chance to relax a little bit and enjoy yourself. I don't want you to work yourself to death, you know? Like Komachi-san was saying… maybe you just needed a little push in the right direction? A little push towards taking it easy for just a while… And I thought… maybe I could help take the burden off you a bit… and be the one to give you that small push… I know it sounds stupid…"

As I listened, I realized that his words hit me harder than I cared to admit. I realized that maybe I had judged him unfairly. Sure, he was a little pest that was clearly pining after my sister, but with those genuine words he'd just spoken, he pretty much proved to me that he was a caring younger brother that ultimately had his sister's best interests at heart.

What he had said somehow didn't surprise me either. Kawasaki's always been the type to work herself too hard. She's always put the needs of her family and those close to her over her own needs and done so without a single complaint. To be honest… I've always greatly admired that quality about her. But Taishi was right. That kind of selflessness wasn't sustainable. At a certain point, everyone needs to take a break and recharge. Kawasaki was incredibly capable, but of course, she was only human.

"…and whenever I mention Komachi-san, you always ask about onii-chan Hikigaya," Taishi continued. My eyebrow raised at those words. "You always get flustered and then tell me to forget about it… So I thought that maybe… you wanted to get to know him better. The whole thing was originally Komachi's idea, b-but I went along with it because… well, onii-chan is one of the coolest guys I know so I thought that maybe he'd be a good choice… you know, that he was worthy of your company…" Taishi sighed. "…and I just wanted you to be happy." His face grew dark and he stared at his feet. "I'm sorry, nee-san."

Suddenly, Taishi found himself being engulfed in a sea of long silver hair.

Kawasaki had quickly closed the distance between the two and she squeezed her slender arms around her younger brother. "H-Huh?" he stammered. "Nee-san..?"

"You dummy…" Kawasaki whispered. "If you think I'm working too hard, next time just tell me…"

"I'm sorry…" Taishi sniffled. Tears began to dot the corners of his eyes. "Can you forgive me for all of this? …Please?"

Kawasaki pulled back a bit and looked at her brother in the eyes. "Of course."

Watching that scene brought a genuine smile to my face. I averted my eyes to give them some privacy.

Ah, sibling love. I knew about that all too well.

"So that's why you did this for me, Komachi-chan? You just wanted the best for me? That's actually really sweet," I said, wiping a tear from my eye.

"Huh?" her nose wrinkled. "Nope! I just wanted you to stop being such a pathetic loser already. Also, you've been watching too much TV lately, and I wanted you to get out of the house so I could finally watch my shows again," Komachi replied without a regard for a single shred of my dignity.

"Oh…" I said dejectedly.

Komachi chuckled. "Kidding, onii-idiot-chan. Of course I want what's best for you," she smiles. "Ooh! That right there was worth at least a billion Komachi points! Hehe!"

I smirk at that.

_This little sister of mine really is more trouble than she's worth…_

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the Kawasakis had pulled apart from each other and now they were standing there somewhat awkwardly.

"So… Uh… I still have a question…" Kawasaki was the one to break that short silence. "…Where did that text come from? You know, the one that was sent to my phone… I mean… Who wrote it…" she asked softly. Her cheeks were stained a light pink for whatever reason.

"A-Actually, I did, nee-san…" Taishi said sheepishly.

Kawasaki's and my eyes both widen.

Kawasaki coughs. "O-Oh. I… didn't know you could write like that, Taishi. It was… um… well-written…" she said slowly.

Taishi chuckled shyly. "Well, it really wasn't so hard I guess…" he started. "…I just tried my best to think of what someone might write if they were writing to someone who was… special to them. Once I did that, it kinda just flowed out of me naturally."

As he said that, I noticed that his eyes drifted dangerously close to someone they shouldn't have been drifting to. That damned silver-tongued little devil.

"Okay, that's it, I don't care how genuinely sweet and caring of a little brother you are, you're never talking to my little sis again."

"W-What?!" Taishi said with wide eyes.

"Onii-chan!" Komachi slapped my arm.

Rubbing at my arm, I sighed. "Fine. Forget I said that…"

Komachi chuckled and Taishi muttered something that sounded like _"man, you really had me going there onii-chan…"_

With the end of that conversation, we all resumed standing there in a somewhat awkward silence.

Kawasaki and I were left to mentally process the explanations we'd been given. Pretty much everything we were curious about had been revealed in one way or another.

Still, even with all of our questions answered, things still didn't feel quite… complete.

It was weird, but it felt like there was something missing.

Like something was still left unresolved. Like there was one more essential part that needed to be addressed before our metaphorical 'story' could find its ultimate conclusion.

I looked over to Kawasaki and noticed that her expression somewhat mirrored my thoughts. Her large teal eyes connected with mine for a split second before turning away abruptly. Although I only saw them for a moment, I thought that glistened with something that I almost saw as… disappointment.

…Strangely enough, I felt the same way, but I couldn't quite say why.

So we had found out the truth—that it was our younger siblings who had concocted this hare-brained scheme to force us onto a date at an overly expensive restaurant. That part was clear now.

However, the part that wasn't clear to me was what exactly those two had been expecting.

They'd somehow managed to connive and convince us both to meet there, but what about after that? What did they think would happen? That the two of us would meet, talk, and instantly fall in love or something? I mean… that wasn't how things really worked…

Of course, things didn't go exactly the way they had planned either, I suppose.

Maybe if I hadn't gotten myself hit by a car, their plan might have had a greater chance of success. Maybe if I hadn't introduced all that paranoia and suspicion about there being a set-up into the conversation, Kawasaki and I's 'date' might have gone more smoothly.

Perhaps, despite the unconventional set-up, we might actually have hit it off, and maybe might have grown closer to one another as a result.

_Huh._

Somehow those words didn't seem all that… farfetched.

I absently scratched my cheek as I thought about the events that had transpired during that day.

_The clumsy, at-times-heated conversation at the restaurant. _

_Our collaborative attempt to figure out what the heck was going on with the letter and those texts. _

_Her getting annoyed at me over my stupid little comments. _

_Her complimenting me about the cleanliness of my house, and then getting mad when I pointed out a couple of obvious facts. _

_The confrontation with Miura at the school, and her state of vulnerability after that. _

…_The arm that I placed around her shoulder to try to comfort her. _

_The meeting with Yukinoshita and Yuigahama. _

…_And finally, where we were now. _

I wasn't sure why, but my face suddenly felt warm.

We had done a surprising amount of things together. It'd only been a day, but it had felt so much longer, somehow.

A lot of those things had been a bit frustrating, or chaotic, or disappointing, but not all of them.

There were moments of humor too. Of comfort. Of teasing. Of understanding.

I took the moment to look at Kawasaki.

She was leaned against a railing, her hands shoved into her jacket pockets. Her lips curved upwards ever so slightly as she watched our two younger siblings bicker about one thing or another.

I couldn't help but smile at that girl in front of me.

That silver-haired girl was a lot of things. Most of the time, she was a delinquent. She smoked, had a brash and abrasive attitude, had a poor vocabulary, and was way too obsessed with her creepy little brother.

She was all those things, but… she wasn't _just_ those things. I had learned a lot about her that I hadn't known.

In reality, she could actually be incredibly sweet. She was waysmarter than I gave her credit for and actually had pretty incredible logical reasoning skills. She was a huge fan of CSI. She was one of the hardest workers I knew. She could be polite. She asked about me sometimes…

Her name was Kawasaki Saki.

And honestly, she was pretty amazing.

I made up my mind in that moment.

"Hey, Kawasaki," I said.

She turned to me with that same expression on her face from before, before asking, "What is it?"

"Do you…" I had to swallow the lump in my throat before I could continue with what I said next. My face felt like it was on fire. "…want to go out some time?"

Komachi and Taishi, who had been talking animatedly about something a second prior, immediately went still and quiet.

My heart was beating out of my chest as that unnerving silence saturated the atmosphere around me.

_Shit. Shit. Shit. Did I just make a really big mistake…? _

Despite my tingling nerves, I was able to shift my gaze to the silver-haired girl in front of me.

Kawasaki's face was painted with an expression of clear shock. However, that shock slowly morphed into an emotion that I wasn't at all expecting. Anger.

"What the hell? Are you stupid?!" Kawasaki said through gritted teeth.

I just stood there, dumbfounded.

I had absolutely no idea how to react to that question, posed at that moment in time.

So I settled on, "Err… no?"

Her silver eyebrows slanted at a dangerous angle. "Seriously Hikigaya? I thought you understood," she said bitingly. However, despite her previously angry expression, her face slowly began to fall ever so slightly.

"Didn't I tell you that I don't like being messed with like that? I've been dealing with this shit all day already, and it's been really hard! You know that! So saying that now isn't funny! It's not a good joke!" she said angrily. Despite this, her tone began to gradually deflate, and her voice grew softer. "Can we just… forget that today ever happened…? I think… it'd be for the best…"

After she said those words, I began to see where she was coming from. From what she said, it seemed as if she thought I were attempting to ask her out as a joke, or just to get a cheap laugh or something equally mean-spirited.

Clearly, the events of the day had taken their toll on her, so it wasn't hard to see why another cruel joke at this moment might upset her so much.

_The thing is… _

"It wasn't a joke," I say.

She looked at me with lidded eyes. "What do you…?"

I let out a small, shaky breath that I had been holding.

"K-Kawasaki Saki. Do you want to go out with me some time? I mean it wholeheartedly and s-seriously," I managed to stutter out. "You know… to uh… get food… or something… it doesn't have to be a fancy place like we went to today or anything… we could grab some coffee, or… even if we just went to the vending machine with the max coffees… that would… you know… be good too, or if not th—"

I heard her sigh. "You know you really sound like an idiot when you stammer like that," Kawasaki says bluntly.

I look down at my feet upon hearing that pointed declaration. Oh. Right.

_I guess that's that then._

"Hey."

I look up to see Kawasaki Saki smiling at me with a playful smirk that really had no right looking that damn cute. My face felt hot again.

"Yeah, I'll go out with you, Hikigaya," she said, her smirk slowly transforming into a full smile. Her cheeks were a bright shade of red.

As cheesy at it sounded to say, I thought I felt my heart stop in that moment. "Er, r-really?"

She nodded. "But you're right. No more _Corte Bellas _from here on out. That place was seriously a ridiculous waste of money."

"Agreed," I say with a small smirk of my own. I really couldn't have agreed more.

Over the blood rushing through my ears, I hear excited squealing coming from a particular little sister of mine, and something that sounds dangerously close to _"all according to keikaku."_

Me and Kawasaki both roll our eyes at that and can't help but break into a fit of laughter.

"It's a date then," we both smile.

**FIN**

* * *

**The end! Wow, I did it! I actually managed to finish one of my longer stories! It's practically a miracle.**

**It was pretty tough writing this chapter because not only did all of the details of the mystery have to be revealed, but there were a lot of different emotions at play here, and it was difficult to get it sorted into a somewhat believable (but still fluffy) conclusion.**

**Who here guessed it was Komachi and Taishi? Anyone? Well, a couple of people in the reviews definitely got it right away, so good job guys! I felt like the mystery was never all that hard to guess, but that wasn't the point really. It's all about the journey right? Lots of people also thought it might have been Haruno, which I thought was pretty funny. That would've been an interesting twist for sure.**

**I actually haven't been able to find a good translated version of the most recent volumes of the light novels so I've been reading the manga and it's practically all caught up and it's actually so fun to read! I highly recommend it if you guys haven't checked it out yet.**

**But yeah, there was a really funny line from a recent chapter that I thought described Hikigaya and Kawasaki's relationship pretty well. It was: "Mad girl to shrinking violet; that's my weakness."**

**I've always loved their dynamic, and I've always really liked Saki so I'm glad I finally have a Saki story under my belt.**

**All in all, I want to thank everyone for taking the time to read, review, and favorite this story. Your support means a lot to me. If you enjoyed this chapter or the story in general, I'd love to hear your thoughts in the reviews.**

**Now that I've finished this story, I'll do my best to get back to work on Maturity and the others. But for now, I rest…**


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